Romney's proposal to zero-out federal spending for public broadcasting will have little to no effect on Sesame Street's budget because the show receives "very, very little funding" from PBS, Sesame Street's executive vice president Sherrie Westin told CNN last week. Westin said the majority of the show's funding comes from corporate sponsorships, product sales and donations.
"Quite frankly, you can debate whether or not there should be funding of public broadcasting. But when they always try to tout out Big Bird, and say we're going to kill Big Bird - that is actually misleading, because Sesame Street will be here," Westin said. "Big Bird lives on."