{"id":248409,"date":"2026-01-16T20:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T20:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/248409\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T20:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T20:41:08","slug":"john-oliver-isnt-sweating-possible-wbd-merger-says-last-week-tonight-wont-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/248409\/","title":{"rendered":"John Oliver Isn&#8217;t Sweating Possible WBD Merger, Says &#8216;Last Week Tonight&#8217; Won&#8217;t Change"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tJohn Oliver is no fan of mergers, regardless of a company\u2019s suitors. \u201cI think mergers are generally bad,\u201d the host of HBO\u2019s Last Week Tonight said Thursday on <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/trevor-noah\/\" id=\"auto-tag_trevor-noah_1\" data-tag=\"trevor-noah\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Trevor Noah<\/a>\u2018s What Now? podcast. \u201cI think you\u2019re always looking for the least bad option.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tIn the case with the biggest potential impact on Oliver\u2019s show, those options would include Netflix and Paramount in the <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/wbd\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">pursuit of a Warner Bros. Discovery pact<\/a>. But Oliver doesn\u2019t seem overly concerned about the outcome either way. Watch the podcast below. The merger discussion begins around the 53:00 mark.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tRelated Stories\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a tabindex=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/2026\/01\/trump-netflix-warner-bros-discovery-1236685412\/\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-deadline-2019\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.jpg\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GettyImages-2250624395-e1766771980821.jpg\" alt=\"President Trump at the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C. on December 7, 2025\" data-lazy- data-lazy- height=\"\" width=\"\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a tabindex=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/2026\/01\/ted-sarandos-netflix-warner-bros-windows-donald-trump-1236685173\/\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-deadline-2019\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.jpg\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Ted-Sarandos.jpg\" alt=\"Ted Sarandos\" data-lazy- data-lazy- height=\"\" width=\"\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s going to get tied up in courts because \u2026 there are going to be question marks on all of this, right?\u201d Oliver said to Noah. \u201cBecause it\u2019s very hard to justify this legally. Now, whether that makes it impossible for it to happen, that\u2019s an open question. But again, you can\u2019t waste time worrying about something that you\u2019re not going to listen to anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tIn other words, Oliver explained about Last Week Tonight\u2018s future, \u201cIt feels like we\u2019re just going to do what we do.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\t\u201cI think you\u2019re always hoping for the least bad option,\u201d Oliver continues. \u201cAnd I think that the key thing for us is to act with enough, like aggression or confidence. \u2026 I will act assuming nothing is going to happen. We\u2019re not going to change, right? I think we\u2019ve been on [and] we\u2019ve been behaving the way we\u2019ve been behaving for long enough that you can\u2019t really reason with us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Oliver is no fan of mergers, regardless of a company\u2019s suitors. \u201cI think mergers are generally bad,\u201d&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,124753,79922,282,12481],"class_list":{"0":"post-248409","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-last-week-tonight-with-john-oliver","12":"tag-trevor-noah","13":"tag-tv","14":"tag-warner-bros-discovery"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}