Why did DC Animated Universe skip Jason Todd/Red Hood?

Question

DCAU aka DC Animated Universe had Robins and a Batgirl in it but they clearly skipped the second Robin, Jason Todd a.k.a. Red Hood. They made Tim Drake as the second Robin rather than the third. Even Tim's characteristics appeared to be an amalgam of Jason Todd's and his own.

Why did they skip him? Death doesn't seem to be a reasonable explanation, as DCAU do show deaths, such as Joker's death in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, as discussed here, and many more on/off screen deaths. So why did they skip Jason Todd's character?

_{Note 1: Looking for official answer only rather than speculation.}

_{Note 2: Batman: Under the Red Hood is not part of DCAU.}

Answer 1

From http://****yeahjasontodd.tumblr.com

In Robin Rising, a special feature on the Batman: Animated Series DVD set, Paul Dini and Bruce Timm talk about bringing in a new Robin.

Bruce Timm: The kid Robin that we did was both a combination of Tim Drake and Jason Todd.

Paul Dini: Jason Todd was a version of Robin that was created in, I believe, the late 70s*. Served as Robin for several years and the fans liked him. He ultimately went down a darker path and was murdered by the Joker, which was a very strong story and one that we couldn’t do in our series. We ultimately abandoned it.

Bruce Timm: The current Robin they had in the comics was Tim Drake, so we decided he should be Tim Drake. But Jason had a really good origin story. So we made him Tim Drake, he had Jason’s origin and some of Jason’s characteristics. So he’s really kind of a half and half conglomerate of the two different Robins.

Robin Rising special feature also present on many online streaming sites like Amazon prime, where makers discuss about the decision about both the robin's age too.

Answer 2

Paul Dini stated that Jason's story was too dark so they had to abandon it.