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How could they do this to our favorite gay puppet couple?
Warner Bros. Discovery has announced its next casualty, and this one really hurts. We're saying goodbye to Sesame Street.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, WBD declined to renew the long-running children's show for a 56th season.
"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 spokesperson said.
Sesame Street was previously saved by HBO nearly a decade ago after PBS could no longer afford the first-run licensing fee. Episodes began initially airing on HBO before hitting PBS months later. In 2020 the show bounced to HBO Max (now just...Max), and in 2022, the newly formed Warner Bros. Discovery merger resulted in 200 episodes being removed from the streamer's library.
It's a decision that didn't go over well with the general public, but one that became par for the course under CEO David Zaslav. Zaslav has become notorious for the company shelving movies before they're released, yanking shows with little to no warning, and making WBD a place many worry is hostile to both creativity and diversity.
Pulling the plug on an iconic show like Sesame Street certainly isn't helping that image, especially as the program had only grown more inclusive in recent years, featuring out gay celebrities, having a gay couple on the block, and celebrating Pride Month on social media.
And now HBO Max is done with it? Yeah, somehow that's not too surprising...
The good news here is that WBD doesn't actually own Sesame Street, leaving it open for another network or streamer to pick it up — and it seems as if there's an expectation that will indeed happen.
But in the meantime, this just reads as yet another short-sighted decision from the folks over at Warner Bros. Discovery.
