Elmo and crew are being kicked to the curb. Sesame Street is looking for a new home for its upcoming season after Warner Bros. Discovery opted out of renewing the show’s output deal with HBO and Max for new original episodes.
The Hollywood Reporter notes that WBD decided not to renew its five-year output deal with Sesame Workshop as HBO and Max are pivoting to more adult and family-oriented programming.
But Max will continue licensing older episodes from the Sesame Street library through 2027. The latest season of the long-running show will also premiere on Max in January.
“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.,” a spokesperson for Max said in a statement shared with THR.
“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,” they said.
A spokesperson for Sesame Workshop also shared, “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 began airing on PBS in 1969 before it moved to HBO from 2016 to 2020. In 2021, it was moved to the network’s streamer, which later became known as Max.
This means other streamers and networks will have the chance to bid for the show’s new season and its already massive trove of episodes, spanning almost six decades on television.
Whoever nabs Sesame Street next will be getting a whole new format, too. The show will be “reimagined” for Season 56 with a more narrative focus, abandoning its iconic magazine style format.
Kay Wilson Stallings, the executive vice president and chief creative development and production officer for Sesame Workshop, told THR in 2023 that the new format will have longer segments that will explore more more “dynamic” and “sophisticated” stories.
This is just the latest step in Max’s new strategy regarding children’s programming, after the streamer absorbed Cartoon Network and Boomerang in a bid to consolidate its library of animated programming.