Nolte: HBO Max Pulls Hundreds of Looney Tunes, Three ‘Flintstones’ Seasons

If you subscribed to HBO Max to gain full access to the Warner Bros. library, all I can say is Sucka!

AV Club reported:

As of the very end of 2022, 256 Looney Tunes shorts have been removed from HBO Max, covering everything from 1950 to 2004, which is about half of what that the streaming service had when it launched. Older shorts from 1930 to 1940 are still available, but Vulture notes that the deleted cartoons include “What’s Opera, Doc?” (see above), “Rabbit Of Seville,” “Duck Amuck,” and “One Froggy Evening” (as if the death of The WB wasn’t enough of an insult to the great Michigan J. Frog).

Warner Bros. Discovery pulls hundreds of Looney Tunes shorts from HBO Max https://t.co/nl1Lmd8slt pic.twitter.com/Xd9x1lVZXq

— The A.V. Club (@TheAVClub) January 4, 2023

But wait, there’s more: HBO Max has also pulled seasons four through six of The Flintstones, which amounts to 78 episodes, leaving only the first three seasons on the platform[.]

So what’s the explanation for ripping off HBO Max subscribers this way?

To save money.

Duh.

HBO Max licenses all this content from Warner Bros. Discovery.

But.

Warner Bros. Discovery owns HBO Max.

It’s all so stupid and short-sighted.

While I appreciate the concerns these multinationals have about the future of streaming, streaming is still the future. There’s no going back to the grift of cable and satellite TV, where these entertainment conglomerates made tens of billions of dollars providing cable networks no one watches (i.e., carriage fees).

With only 66 percent of households paying for cable TV today (down from nearly 90 percent 15 years ago), the entertainment industry is losing billions. Sadder still (tee hee), those dollars are not getting made up with streaming subscriptions. Quite the opposite. What had been the cash cow of cable TV is now a blackhole of streaming services that lose money every year.

The point I’m getting at is this…

As I said, streaming is the future. So, if streaming is the future, why is Warner Bros. Discovery cutting off its own nose to spite its stupid face?

If people are going to pay for your streaming service, the content they expect had better be there — all of it.

At the very least, HBO Max subscribers expect — and I do mean expect — access to all of the Warner Bros. content. That’s what they are paying for.

To remove that content in order to save a few bucks or make a few bucks renting it out elsewhere is loony tunes. It undermines confidence in your product. No one will trust they will get what they pay for. No one can be certain you won’t yank content at any time.

Why would any sane company do this?

Well, these are the same geniuses who made a whole superhero movie called Batgirl and then decided not to release it. Instead, they turned a superhero movie into a lucrative tax write-off. You don’t do that. No one does that, even if you’re certain the movie will lose money. This too, undermines confidence in your company. Why would artists come to you if they have to worry about you figuratively burning their art for tax benefits?

What this boils down to is the following…

If there is content you love, buy the hard copies and buy it NOW.

Once everything goes digital, these fascist corporations can do whatever they wish, including making it vanish forever or censoring whatever offends America’s woke babies.

You want all the South Park episodes? Buy the discs.

You want all the Simpsons episodes? Buy the discs.

I intended to go all digital until I discovered Hollywood had gone over to the dark side of Woke McCarthyism and started censoring itself. So now I’m buying discs again — a lot of them (including this)

Don’t count on greedy, corrupt, left-wing multinationals to protect the art you cherish. Preserve it yourself, and do it now.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.