A television staple is looking for a new home. Sesame Street is winding down its nearly decade-long run on HBO and Max.
Warner Bros. Discovery confirmed to Deadline that it has declined to renew the agreement covering original episodes, but will retain select library rights. Sesame Workshop, the non-profit producer of the show, struck a game-changing deal with HBO in 2015 to have original episodes air first on the premium network before a later broadcast window on PBS.
The arrangement was put in place as leading-edge subscription streaming service HBO Now was getting set to launch and lasted through multiple ownership eras. In 2019, a new deal was struck to shift the show’s base to HBO Max from linear HBO.
Last month, Sesame Street marked the 55th anniversary of its first broadcast. (It has aired on PBS since 1970.) While its towering cultural impact cannot be overstated, as a series competing with a growing range of for-profit fare it has faced significant challenges. First, it was cable TV and shows like Nickelodeon’s Blue’s Clues that dethroned the show as the go-to title for young person viewing. Then, in the streaming era, Apple TV+, Prime Video and Netflix all spent aggressively on kids fare, and YouTube also offered endless shelf space for alternatives to Big Bird.
Despite those headwinds, the iconic series is a significant financial contributor to Sesame Workshop. The organization reported $171.7 million in revenue in fiscal 2024.
“It has been a wonderful, creative experience working with everyone at Sesame Street on the iconic children’s series and we are thrilled to be able to keep some of the library series on Max in the U.S.,” Max said in a statement provided to Deadline. “As we’ve launched Max though and based on consumer usage and feedback, we’ve had to prioritize our focus on stories for adults and families, and so new episodes from Sesame Street, at this time, are not as core to our strategy.”
A Sesame Workshop rep told Deadline the parties are extending their current partnership, keeping library programming on Max through 2027. “We will continue to invest in our best-in-class programming and look forward to announcing our new distribution plans in the coming months, ensuring that Sesame Street reaches as many children as possible for generations to come,” the organization said in a statement.
JB Perrette, head of streaming and video games for WBD, spoke to the strategic shift last week at a Wall Street conference, arguing that tightening the programming focus has helped Max get on a more profitable path. During the time immediately after the close of the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger in April 2022, he said, the company’s approach to streaming was “a little bit of machine-gun spray of let’s try and do everything,” he said. With kids programming in particular, he added, “there are too many other offerings out there that are highly appealing and already have user behavior fairly well established. That’s one of the areas where we said that’s not a priority investment category for us.”
Deadline sister publication The Hollywood Reporter was the first to report on the non-renewal.
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