According to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. Discovery will not be renewing their Sesame Street contract with Max and HBO. Therefore, the children’s television series will be looking for a new streamer for new episodes. Max will remain with Sesame Workshop, the show’s producer and continue to license episodes until 2027. Many shows from Cartoon Network, another Warner Bros. company, will be leaving the streamer as well.
The Hollywood Reporter stated that the decision was made from motive to appeal to families and adults and emphasizing specific programs for that audience. A Max spokesperson revealed the information in the THR interview. Shows such as the upcoming 10-season Harry Potter series.
A Sesame workshop spokesperson stated, “We are excited to extend our 10-year partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery, keeping Sesame Street’s iconic library available 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.”
Sesame Street premiered in 1969 and was aired on PBS in 1970 and is still currently running on that streamer months after it debuts on HBO. The show moved to HBO in 2016 and in 2019, moved to Max and HBO Max. THR believes the highly loved children’s show can appeal to many streaming services such as Apple TV+, Netflix and Prime Video for a larger market. However, itis unaware how the new episode partners will acquire the long range of episodes because of the library Max deal.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, the Sesame Workshop executives are looking for creative ways to keep the show engaging to a new audience for season 56 that will perform under a different deal. The series will shift to narrative segments instead of its usual “magazine” format. The previous change made in Sesame Street was in 2016 where the show’s run time is now 30 minutes instead of an hour.
Season 55, the most current season, of Sesame Street will stay on the steamer starting next month.