New year, same old HBO Max. Classic cartoon fans stumbled across some disappointing news on Jan. 1. It has been reported across multiple outlets that 16 seasons of “Looney Tunes” shorts have been removed from the Warner Bros. Discovery streaming service. That means that the streamer has lost 244 of the 511 animated shorts from Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and crew without warning or an official announcement.
Seasons 16-31 of “Looney Tunes” were apparently purged from the service on New Year’s Day, while — as of publishing time — Seasons 1-15 remain on the streamer. Other related series, including “The Looney Tunes Show,” “Looney Tunes Cartoons,” “New Looney Tunes,” and more also appear to have been unaffected by the removals.
This is far from the first content removal that WBD has experienced in recent months. Ever since Discovery completed the purchase of WarnerMedia in April 2022, new CEO David Zaslav has been tasked with coming up with billions of dollars in cost savings to pull the company out of debt, and despite dozens of cuts to children's programs and Max Originals over the summer, the escalating merger costs rose to north of $5 billion, resulting in Zaslav engaging in another round of cancelations and removals late in 2022.
While HBO Max had seemingly long ago given up on cartoons, educational programs, and children's shows, the fact that these “Looney Tunes” removals are legacy Warner properties likely means that Zaslav is looking to license them to an outside media company in order to generate additional revenue for the company. Given that they were removed on the first of the year, would suggest that either a contract with a new outlet began on Jan. 1, or that WBD was looking to avoid paying out any additional royalties due to the newer half of the “Looney Tunes” seasons being available in the new year. The exec made similar moves recently with HBO Originals “Westworld,” “The Nevers,” “Raised by Wolves,” and more, farming them out to other streaming services for a price.
There has been no word as of yet as to when or where these shorts will appear, but they likely won’t be on one of Warner Bros. Discovery’s planned free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels. While the company has openly discussed the eventuality that it will launch free, linear streaming channels to highlight popular parts of its library — The Streamable even suggested a Saturday Morning Cartoons FAST channel — generally, one of the benefits of having a hybrid streaming approach is to encourage viewers who enjoy a certain type of content on FAST to subscribe to the premium streamer in order to watch it commercial-free and on demand. However, removing Seasons 16-31 of “Looney Tunes,” that would appear to not be the plan in this situation.
While WBD has been open about the fact that in removing titles from HBO Max, it is only targeting programs that are not deemed to be significant traffic drivers to the site, by regularly removing content that subscribers have become accustomed to streaming, Zaslav and his team might be irreparably damaging the once sterling reputation of the company’s flagship streamer.
It is still unclear when — or if — these types of cuts will end at Warner Bros. Discovery, but with the company planning on merging discovery+ and HBO Max in the spring, it would seemingly behoove WBD to have a stable slate of content to promote to subscribers when the change eventually occurs.
Max
Max is a subscription video streaming service that gives access to the full HBO library, along with exclusive Max Originals. There are hubs for content from TLC, HGTV, Food Network, Discovery, TCM, Cartoon Network, Travel Channel, ID, and more. Watch hit series like “The Last of Us,” “House of the Dragon,” “Succession,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and more. Thanks to the B/R Sports add-on, users can watch NBA, MLB, NHL, March Madness, and NASCAR events.