HBO Max Removing 200 Sesame Street Episodes, Plus Other Shows and Movies

Streaming services continue to struggle to keep up with huge payouts for movies and TV shows heading to content creators. The latest victim in the financial wars is Sesame Street, which will see 200 historic shows removed from HBO Max.

This comes on the heels of another recent announcement that a significant number of titles would be removed from the streaming giant in coming weeks.

Sesame Street episodes being removed from HBO Max (Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The costs of content continue to skyrocket, and this is apparently part of Discovery's efforts to reduce expenses after their take over of Warner Media.

It's unclear if any of the older Sesame Street episodes were removed for having objectionable content in today's woke environment.

The current iteration of the show has plenty of objectionable content though; from using Big Bird to promote COVID vaccinations last fall to another disgraceful attempt to promote the shots to children by having Elmo get vaccinated during an episode:

Disney+ has seen substantial subscriber growth, with many parents signing up for the wide variety of (mostly) family friendly content on the platform.

HBO Max is trying to reach a broad audience, between current HBO programming, classic films from Turner Classic, and a selection of Warner Bros. Studios products like the Batman movies.

Though, removing much of their Sesame Street catalog might cost them some family subscribers who prioritize having a substantial library of kid-focused content.

Warner Bros. Discovery claims that the upcoming merger of HBO Max and Discovery+ is partially responsible for much of their content removals, but it remains to be seen how many shows will migrate to the new platform or be quietly dismissed to keep costs lower.