HBO Max Mysteriously Axes Almost 200 ‘Sesame Street’ Episodes

In early August, Warner Bros. Discovery announced its plans to merge its HBO Max and Discovery+ services into a single streaming platform by the start of summer 2023. The merger is an attempt to get more subscribers in a competitive market, and flip the narrative on the company's massive $55 million debt.

While the merger between Discovery+ and HBO Max has a goal of hitting at least 130 million paying subscribers by 2025, the new partnership also brings with it a chopping block: recently, nearly 200 episodes of PBS’ “Sesame Street” were pulled from HBO Max in preparation for the merger.

“As we work toward bringing our content catalogs under one platform, we will be making changes to the content offering available on both HBO Max and Discovery+. That will include the removal of some content from both platforms,” an HBO Max spokesman told Variety.

HBO Max’s former parent company, WarnerMedia, merged with Discovery Inc, in April. The newly merged company, Warner Bros. Discovery, is now attempting to do whatever it can to address its $55 million debt, including merging streaming services and sacking 14% of their employees earlier this week.

On Friday, HBO Max cut their number of “Sesame Street” episodes from 650 down to 456. The streaming service now only has episodes from seasons 1, 5 and 7 as well as seasons 39 through 52 available for their viewers. HBO Max has also cut the “Sesame Street” spinoff “The Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo.” However, the streaming service has promised to make the upcoming season, season 53, available to subscribers.

“‘Sesame Street’ is and has always been an important part of television culture and a crown jewel of our preschool offering,” an HBO Max spokesperson said. “We are committed to continuing to bring ‘Sesame Street’ into families’ homes,” including with Season 53 premiering this fall and the 400-plus episodes of the most recent and past seasons that remain on Cartoonito on HBO Max.

“Sesame Street” is not the first show to see its content removed. As part of the preparations for the merger, Warner Bros. Discovery will be removing 36 movies and TV shows including: “Aquaman: King of Atlantis,” “Ellen’s Next Great Designer,” “Uncle Grandpa,” and “The Ollie & Moon Show” from their service in an effort to cut down on costs, at least in the “tens of millions of dollars,” an insider told CNBC.

The service is mostly pulling reality TV as well as kids and family content. While HBO Max will get its reality TV content from Discovery, the streaming service has yet to pull strong viewer numbers for its kids programming. Meanwhile, HBO Max has been perceived as a streaming service with mature, sexual content, so it’s no wonder that parents would avoid tuning in for their kids’ favorite shows.