By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
News broke last week via The Hollywood Reporter that Sesame Street would soon be without a streaming home after Warner Bros Discovery decided not to renew the show’s contract with HBO. Since 2018, the most popular children’s educational show in history has been part of HBO and, later, Max, where it will remain, or at least should remain, through 2027, when the streaming contract runs out. What that contract doesn’t cover, though, is the new seasons, with Season 55 being the last one available on Max, and the fate of Season 56 is up in the air.
Sesame Street Is Homeless
Warner Bros Discovery CEO David Zaslav may be making shareholders happy with his cost-cutting measures. Still, he’s managed to anger thousands, if not millions, of consumers. By pulling entire animated shows off Max without licensing them out to another company, the amount of shows that may never see the light of day again has spiked under his leadership. Sesame Street, despite being an American institution, was not spared from his cost-cutting, as hundreds of episodes have already been pulled from Max.
Though it was under Zaslav’s direction that Sesame Street had been purged, the massive amount of episodes, over 5,000, appeals to other streaming services that aren’t run by a CEO who thinks the best way to gain viewership is through another spin-off of Property Brothers. Sesame Workshop, the independent company behind the series, still has its deal with PBS. The Public Broadcasting Station has been under fire for years as a potential federal budget cut, and even if it sticks around, its future is uncertain. It can’t support the show on its own anymore, hence the need for a broadcast partner.
Sesame Street Is Going Through Major Changes
Season 56 of Sesame Street may not happen for a while, but when it does, it will not only be the first of the new seasons with its new streaming partner but will also be a dramatic format change. The classic short segment style of the series is being retooled into shorter episodes with a more narrative, Tales from 123. The show has changed formats before, dropping from 60 minutes in 2016 to 30 minutes, but no matter what happens, Elmo’s hatred of Rocco has to be carried over.
The switch to more narrative segments that include world-building might be a response to the current king of children’s programming, Bluey, the unbelievably charming Australian program about what life with kids is really like. The difference between the two is that Sesame Street is more like a traditional classroom, with each segment focused on a lesson to learn, and while it’s fun, thanks to the Muppet characters, it’s obviously learning. Bluey encourages a different type of learning, one that’s focused more on understanding the world and the importance of play in children’s development, and both are exceptional together; they are some of the finest shows ever made, but it’s clear why the older PBS series is again changing with the times.
No One Knows What Warner Bros Is Doing
Warner Bros. Discovery is also going through a period of change, which is why leadership decided that Sesame Street no longer fits the type of content they want on Max. Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Elmo, Abby, Rosita, Bert, Ernie, and all the rest have been sent out onto the streets because Warner Bros Discovery wants to focus on “family” shows, like the upcoming Harry Potter series no one asked for.
Someone, either Amazon or Netflix, will likely scoop up Sesame Street, but until 2027, the show’s entire back catalog will be trapped on Max, which means you can count on whoever picks up the show to have a huge celebration when all 5,000+ episodes are available again, while at the same time, Zaslav wonders why Max is the laughingstock of the streaming industry.
