{"id":416586,"date":"2026-01-16T09:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T09:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/416586\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T09:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T09:28:08","slug":"john-oliver-slams-warner-bros-netflix-deal-says-hbo-show-wont-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/416586\/","title":{"rendered":"John Oliver Slams Warner Bros. Netflix Deal, Says HBO Show Won&#8217;t Change"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/hbo\/\" id=\"auto-tag_hbo_1\" data-tag=\"hbo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">HBO<\/a> Last Week Tonight host <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/john-oliver\/\" id=\"auto-tag_john-oliver_1\" data-tag=\"john-oliver\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">John Oliver<\/a> is not a big a fan of the non-stop barrage of media mergers, but he and his team have no plans to change what they are doing, regardless of whether <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/netflix\/\" id=\"auto-tag_netflix_1\" data-tag=\"netflix\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Netflix<\/a> or Paramount ends up with the prize.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t\u201cI think mergers are generally bad. I think you\u2019re always hoping for the least bad option,\u201d Oliver told former Daily Show host Trevor Noah <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=qnxiB39lJlo&amp;t=3434s\">on his podcast Thursday <\/a>(Noah will <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/music\/music-industry-news\/2026-grammys-trevor-noah-host-final-time-1236472233\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">host the Grammy Awards<\/a> for Paramount next month). \u201cI think that the key thing for us is to act with enough aggression or confidence\u2026 I will act assuming nothing is going to happen. We\u2019re not going to change, right?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t\u201cWe\u2019ve been behaving the way we\u2019ve been behaving for long enough that you can\u2019t really reason with us,\u201d he continued. \u201cSo there\u2019s no point doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tOliver noted that HBO has been sold twice already since he started hosting his show, once in Time Warner\u2019s sale to AT&amp;T, and again in WarnerMedia\u2019s spinout into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/warner-bros-2\/\" id=\"auto-tag_warner-bros-2_1\" data-tag=\"warner-bros-2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Warner Bros<\/a>. Discovery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t\u201cYou know, these things come with cuts,\u201d Oliver said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tAnd he expressed skepticism about the state of media generally, questioning whether all of the deals are really warranted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t\u201cThere are going to be question marks on all of this, right? Because it\u2019s very hard to justify this legally,\u201d Oliver said. \u201cNow, whether that makes it impossible for it to happen, that\u2019s an open question.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tNetflix of course has a signed deal for Warner Bros., but Paramount is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/business\/business-news\/warner-bros-discovery-rejects-paramount-revised-offer-1236457301\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">threatening<\/a> a hostile bid. Both could face tough regulatory scrutiny in the U.S. and Europe, though Paramount has argued that it has an easier path.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HBO Last Week Tonight host John Oliver is not a big a fan of the non-stop barrage of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,9054,3389,12441,435,427,6141],"class_list":{"0":"post-416586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-hbo","12":"tag-international","13":"tag-john-oliver","14":"tag-netflix","15":"tag-tv","16":"tag-warner-bros"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}