{"id":498880,"date":"2026-03-02T07:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T07:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/498880\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T07:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T07:06:08","slug":"john-oliver-on-paramount-buying-wbd-not-great-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/498880\/","title":{"rendered":"John Oliver On Paramount Buying WBD: \u201cNot Great News\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJohn Oliver<\/a> has a history of berating the owners of his network, HBO. So much so, that he regularly refers to them as \u201cbusiness daddy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt turns out we might be getting a new business daddy,\u201d the Last Week Tonight<\/a> host said at the beginning of Sunday\u2019s episode of Last Week Tonight. \u201cYeah, not great news. If I may quote anyone who\u2019s ever accidentally sat on their Roku remote, \u2018Oh sh*t, I\u2019m in Paramount<\/a> now. How the f*ck do I get out of this?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt comes days after Paramount surprised Hollywood by outbidding Netflix to strike a deal to acquire HBO owner Warner Bros. Discovery in a $110 billion deal<\/a>. Netflix walked away after the David Ellison-run company increased its offer to $31 a share.<\/p>\n

\n\tLater in tonight\u2019s episode, which was largely about police body cameras (with a touch of Dan Bongino\u2019s \u201cweird\u201d show), Oliver mocked Paramount+\u2019s low ratings. \u201cThere\u2019s no point in the police just stacking up thousand of hours of footage that nobody\u2019s ever going to see, especially given that we all know, that\u2019s Paramount+\u2019s job.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat are they going to do? Take us over and immediately cancel us? I\u2019m genuinely asking,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

\n\tWhether Ellison and his crew will give Oliver the same grace to make fun of them and the company, if and when a deal is officially approved, remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

\n\tLast month, Oliver joked that he didn\u2019t know whether Paramount or Netflix<\/a> would be his new business daddy. \u201cIt\u2019s like a\u00a0Mamma Mia!\u00a0situation except less fun and way less sexy. But incidentally, if it is indeed Netflix, sorry for all the times I called your catalog a \u2018who\u2019s who of who the f*ck is this?\u2019,\u201d he joked.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2019, Oliver, whose current contract runs through the end of the year, skewered then-owner AT&T for its \u201cterrible\u201d phone service.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2022, not long after David Zaslav\u2019s Discovery took over the iconic studio, he said that he had the \u201cvague sense\u201d that he was \u201cburning down my network for the insurance money.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLess than six months later, he took aim at the constant rebranding of HBO Max<\/a>. \u201cOur business daddy took its content purge up a notch and threw the whole HBO out,\u201d\u00a0he joked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Oliver has a history of berating the owners of his network, HBO. So much so, that he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,20991,22339,22340,4208,226553,92,20007],"class_list":{"0":"post-498880","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-john-oliver","10":"tag-last-week-tonight","11":"tag-last-week-tonight-with-john-oliver","12":"tag-paramount","13":"tag-paramount-wb","14":"tag-tv","15":"tag-wbd"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}