R is for removal and that’s bad enough for me.
In HBO Max’s continuing trend of purging content to cut costs, the streamer has removed around 200 episodes of the beloved children’s show Sesame Street, according to Variety.
As of Friday, only 29 episodes from Seasons 1, 5 and 7 and the full seasons of Seasons 39 to 52 were available. A total of 650 episodes, including those from Seasons 2 through 4, 6 and 8 through 35, along with specials, were previously available, per the news outlet.
In 2015, HBO and Sesame Workshop initially came to a deal that gave Sesame Street a new source of income while also giving HBO the opportunity to air new episodes of the iconic program before they air on its longstanding home PBS. As of right now, Sesame Street will continue to air on HBO Max through 2025.
The news comes on the heels of HBO Max’s announcement it will remove 37 titles, including 20 HBO Max Originals and select Sesame Street specials, by the end of this week.
HBO Max previously shelved the nearly-complete $90 million feature Batgirl and Scoob!: Holiday Haunt, a follow-up to the 2020 film Scoob. It also quietly pulled TV shows and films from its streaming library over the past few weeks. More cuts were expected as Warner Bros. Discovery plans to merge its two streaming services–HBO Max and Discovery+–by the summer of 2023.
“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+,” HBO Max said in a statement. “That will include the removal of some content from both platforms.”