{"id":792424,"date":"2026-10-05T07:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T07:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/792424\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T07:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T07:02:10","slug":"john-oliver-dodges-david-ellison-skydance-news-on-last-week-tonight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/792424\/","title":{"rendered":"John Oliver Dodges David Ellison-Skydance News on ‘Last Week Tonight’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe big media news this week concerned Skydance Corp.<\/a>, David Ellison<\/a>\u2019s newly formed Hollywood mega-company comprising Paramount Skydance<\/a> and Warner Bros.<\/a> Discovery, which Ellison (and his father Larry) acquired in a $111 billion debt-addled merger that is set to officially close Oct. 6. What the long-term future of the studio behemoth may look like is yet to be determined, though in the immediate it will surely mean massive job cuts and a change in editorial bent for CNN<\/a> similar to Ellison and Bari Weiss\u2019s CBS News makeover.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt may also mean that John Oliver<\/a> and \u201cLast Week Tonight\u201d are operating on borrowed time.<\/p>\n

\n\tOliver and his \u201cLast Week Tonight\u201d team extended their contact to 2027<\/a> just prior to the merger being finalized, but given how Ellison pulled the plug on Stephen Colbert\u2019s \u201cThe Late Show\u201d \u2014 presumably at the behest of his political ally, President Trump \u2014 who knows if Oliver and co. will make it to the end of the deal.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd so, on Sunday night, all eyes were on HBO<\/a>, Oliver and \u201cLast Week Tonight\u201d to see if he\u2019d address Ellison swallowing up his parent company Warner Bros. Discovery. After all, Oliver has poked fun at the Ellisons on the program in the past<\/a>. The show\u2019s main story covered the history of Secret Service agents\u2019 protection of the U.S. president pegged to the myriad security breaches that have nearly cost Trump his life due to a mixture of incompetence, lack of resources and a \u201cdoing more with less\u201d culture. Since the Department of Homeland Security once hired Hollywood filmmaker Michael Bay to shoot a pricey recruitment ad that aired during the Super Bowl, Oliver\u2019s Secret Service segment culminated with a parody ad for the Secret Service featuring Adam DeVine and Anders Holm of \u201cWorkaholics\u201d as inept agents.<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, Oliver opted not to address the news that Ellison\u2019s Warner Bros. Discovery takeover had been approved or its rebranding as Skydance Corp.<\/p>\n

\n\tMaybe next week?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The big media news this week concerned Skydance Corp., David Ellison\u2019s newly formed Hollywood mega-company comprising Paramount Skydance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":792425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[16384,96,1636,8252,197737,16155,391,56,54,55,18199],"class_list":["post-792424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-david-ellison","tag-entertainment","tag-hbo","tag-john-oliver","tag-last-week-tonight-with-john-oliver","tag-skydance","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-warner-bros"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}