Comcast Corp. is in advanced talks with the Public Broadcasting Service, Sesame Workshop and Britain's HIT Entertainment to develop a 24-hour TV network for preschool children, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
The network would carry no commercials and would have rights to shows such as "Sesame Street" and "Barney & Friends," the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Rights to those shows are now owned by the nonprofit Sesame Workshop and HIT, a UK-based producer of children's programming, the newspaper said.
A Sesame Workshop spokeswoman, Beatrice Chow, told Reuters that "Sesame Workshop is in discussions with a number of media outlets including Comcast and Noggin to find the best home for Sesame Workshop library material on digital cable."
Noggin, owned by Nickelodeon, is an educational channel dedicated to preschoolers that broadcasts 12 hours a day, according to information on Noggin's Web site.
Neither Comcast nor PBS, a government-backed non-profit broadcaster, was immediately available for comment on the report. HIT Chief Executive Robert Lawes declined comment.
Comcast, PBS and the two programmers each would own stakes in the network, which has not yet been named, the Journal said. The proposed network would be a digital channel, meaning it would only be available to cable subscribers who pay about $10 extra for additional channels and a sharper-quality picture, the newspaper said.
The newspaper, citing people involved in the talks, said negotiations could be finalized within weeks and that the network could launch sometime next year.
