{"id":513664,"date":"2026-03-02T10:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T10:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/513664\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T10:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T10:26:08","slug":"john-oliver-on-paramount-buying-warner-bros-monologue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/513664\/","title":{"rendered":"John Oliver on Paramount Buying Warner Bros. Monologue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/john-oliver\/\" id=\"auto-tag_john-oliver\" data-tag=\"john-oliver\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">John Oliver<\/a> addressed <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/paramount\/\" id=\"auto-tag_paramount\" data-tag=\"paramount\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Paramount<\/a>\u2019s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery during Sunday night\u2019s episode of \u201cLast Night Tonight.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cWe might be getting a new business daddy!,\u201d Oliver quipped at the beginning of Sunday night\u2019s show. \u201cLast Week Tonight\u201d airs on <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/hbo\/\" id=\"auto-tag_hbo\" data-tag=\"hbo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">HBO<\/a>, which sits within Warner Bros. Discovery. Under the announced terms, Paramount plans to buy all outstanding WBD shares at $31 per share in cash, with the companies saying the deal is expected to close in Q3 2026, subject to regulatory clearances and WBD shareholder approval.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cYeah, not great news,\u201d he went on to say. \u201cIn fact, if I may quote anyone who\u2019s ever accidentally sat on their Roku remote, I\u2019m in Paramount now\u2026how the f-ck do I get out of here?&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tNetflix on Thursday afternoon formally declined to increase its offer for Warner Bros. after WBD declared Paramount Skydance\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2026\/biz\/news\/warner-bros-discovery-paramount-superior-netflix-four-days-1236674011\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">latest bid a \u201csuperior proposal<\/a>\u201d to the agreement it already had in hand with Netflix.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThis isn\u2019t the first time Oliver has taken aim at Paramount. Amid early chatter about a possible Paramount\u2013WBD tie-up last September, the comedian said \u201cPlease stay the f-ck away from us. You are not my real business daddy, and you never will be!\u201d Oliver\u2019s concern underlying the joke was that if Paramount acquired Warner Bros. Discovery, HBO could be pulled closer to a broadcast-style corporate structure \u2014 including potential sensitivity to FCC oversight and regulatory pressure \u2014 something he has previously contrasted with the relative freedom of premium cable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tIn that same episode, while walking through a hypothetical in which someone could hand Donald Trump a $15 million check earmarked for a presidential library foundation and still stay within the rules, Oliver pivoted to a punchline about what kind of \u201csoulless\u201d corporation would ever do something like that \u2014 and flashed Paramount\u2019s logo on-screen to underline the target. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Oliver addressed Paramount\u2019s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery during Sunday night\u2019s episode of \u201cLast Night Tonight.\u201d \u201cWe&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134,9054,12441,14627,6142],"class_list":{"0":"post-513664","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-hbo","12":"tag-john-oliver","13":"tag-paramount","14":"tag-warner-bros-discovery"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513664","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=513664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}