The HBO Max Service Is Removing Approximately 200 Episodes Of The Television Show “Sesame Street”
The content purge at HBO Max continues as the streaming platform has removed approximately 200 older episodes of the classic children’s television show “Sesame Street” as part of its ongoing content purge efforts.
There appears to be a connection between HBO Max removing “Sesame Street” episodes and other recent content, as part of its new owner Warner Bros. Discovery’s belt-tightening moves, aimed at reducing the costs of streaming content for subscribers.
The HBO Max website listed 456 episodes of “Sesame Street” as of Friday, including a selection from Seasons 1, 5, and 7 and the full season lineup for Seasons 39-52, as well as a few older episodes.
Only 29 of those are from the earliest seasons of the show. The streaming service used to offer about 650 total episodes of “Sesame Street”. These included episodes from Seasons 2-4, Season 6 as well as every season between Seasons 8 and 35.
The Warner Brothers Corporation. HBO Max removed several older episodes of “Sesame Street” this week, Discovery confirmed.
A spokesperson for HBO Max said in a statement to Variety that “Sesame Street is and has always been an important part of television culture and has always been a crown jewel of our preschool offering.”
In addition to Season 53 premiering this fall, we are also committed to continuing to bring “Sesame Street” to families’ homes, as well as the 400-plus episodes from past and recent seasons that are still available on Cartoonito on HBO Max.
Reps from Sesame Workshop did not respond to requests for comment. You can still watch some episodes of “Sesame Street” on PBS Kids as well as on the Sesame Street channel on YouTube.
A new revenue stream for “Sesame Street,” as well as HBO’s rights to show new episodes of the landmark series ahead of its longtime home, PBS, were the results of the HBO and Sesame Workshop agreement that was reached in 2015, providing a new revenue stream for the landmark series.
Until the year 2025, HBO Max will continue to carry new seasons of “Sesame Street” as a first-run show.
The 10-episode “Sesame Street Mecha Builders” series, seven seasons of “My Sesame Street Friends” and “The Magical Wand Chase” special featuring Elmo and Abby are still available for now on HBO Max, in addition to the remaining episodes of the “Sesame Street” series.
There will also be additional episodes of “Sesame Street Mecha Builders” that will be premiered later in 2022 by the streaming service.
The removal of the episodes of “Sesame Street” comes after HBO Max announced on Wednesday that at least 36 more titles will be leaving the service within the next week.
This package includes 20 original HBO Max shows, including the teen drama “Generation,” the animated anthology series “Infinity Train,” and the kids’ show “Summer Camp Island,” along with several special episodes of the “Sesame Street” franchise.
This is in addition to the previously announced titles that are departing HBO Max this month, including the eight original “Harry Potter” films.
The Warner Brothers company. It has been reported that Discovery’s decision to pull the titles from HBO Max had something to do with the pending combination of the platform with Discovery+.
As we work toward bringing together our content catalogs under one platform, we will be changing the content offering available both on HBO Max and Discovery+ as we move toward bringing them together,” the company said in a statement.
“As part of that process, some content will be removed from both platforms.”
In recent weeks, HBO Max has also quietly removed six Warner Bros. films and a few HBO shows, including “Camping,” “Vinyl,” “Mrs. Fletcher” and “Run.” As part of Warner Bros.’s stewardship, HBO Max also recently canceled Greg Berlanti’s DC series “Strange Adventures” and the live-action film based on the Wonder Twins.