HBO Max Removes Nearly 200 Older ‘Sesame Street’ Episodes in Apparent Cost-Cutting Measure

HBO Max has removed nearly 200 older episodes of the classic children’s television show, Sesame Street. Meanwhile, newer, woke content — such as last year’s “Family Day” episode featuring two gay dads — can still be accessed on the streaming platform.

The removal of the roughly 200 older Sesame Street episodes by HBO Max appears to be part of new owner Warner Bros. Discovery’s goal to reduce streaming-content payment obligations, according to a report by Variety.

“As we work toward bringing our content catalogs together under one platform, we will be making changes to the content offering available on both HBO Max and Discovery+,” Warner Bros. Discovery said in a statement. “That will include the removal of some content from both platforms.”

In 2015, HBO and Sesame Workshop reportedly signed an agreement that offered Sesame Street a new revenue stream by allowing HBO the right to run new episodes of the children’s series before they appeared on the show’s original platform, PBS.

Previously, HBO Max offered roughly 650 Sesame Street episodes in total, which included content from Seasons 2 through 4, Season 6, as well as episodes from every Season between 8 and 35.

But now, the streaming service only offers a limited selection of episodes from Seasons 1, 5, and 7. Just five episodes from Season 1, fourteen episodes from Season 5, and ten episodes from Season 7 can be accessed. Meanwhile, the full lineup from the most recent Seasons 39 to 52 can be viewed — for a total of 456 across all seasons.

While fewer of the classic Sesame Street episodes can be accessed, updated content, such as “Family Day” in Season 51 can be found. In the episode, Sesame Street character Nina introduces her brother and his husband, as well as their daughter, to Elmo and his friends.

“Okay, everybody — I want you to meet my brother Dave, his husband, Frank, and my sobrina, Mia, my niece,” Nina says as she introduces them to the other characters.

Watch Below:

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.