John Oliver isn’t what you might say thrilled about getting a new “business daddy.”
That’s how he’s referred to whatever company happens to own HBO, home of his late-night show Last Week Tonight, over the years, from AT&T to Warner Bros. Discovery. On Sunday’s episode, he referenced last week’s news that Netflix had backed out of the bidding for Warner Bros., positioning David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance to win the battle for the studio.
“It turns out we might be getting a new business daddy,” he said, before showing a news clip recapping recent events. “Yeah, not great news. In fact, if I may quote anyone who’s ever accidentally sat on their Roku remote, ‘Oh shit, I’m in Paramount now, how the fuck do I get out of this?’”
Later in his show, during the main segment, on police body cameras, Oliver took another jab at Paramount. Making a point that police departments aren’t reviewing the footage being taken by these cameras on a regular basis, Oliver brought up a case in which footage had gone unwatched showing that officers of the Minneapolis Police Department repeatedly using neck restraints. That footage had not been viewed until an investigation was launched.
“There’s no point in the police just stacking up thousands of hours of footage that nobody’s ever going to see, especially given that we all know that is Paramount+’s job,” Oliver joked, adding of his potential new bosses: “What are they gonna do? Take us over and immediately cancel us? I’m genuinely asking.”
On Monday, Ellison said that HBO Max and Paramount+ will combine into one direct-to-consumer streaming service if and when the deal is finalized. However, HBO will continue to “operate with independence,” he added.
Last week,Netflixsaid it was declining to raise its bid for Warner Bros. Co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters released a statement Thursday saying that the deal is “no longer financially attractive” and that it “was always a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price.”
“The transaction we negotiated would have created shareholder value with a clear path to regulatory approval,” they said in a joint statement. “However, we’ve always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match the Paramount Skydance bid.”
For his part, Oliver has never shied away from poking fun at whatever parent company owns HBO. He frequently criticized previous owner AT&T, mocking what he called its“terrible” service.He also took jabs at AT&T during asegment about robocallsand went on a rant over the company’ssupport of “white nationalist” Steve King.
And in 2022, when Discovery and WarnerMedia combined to create Warner Bros. Discovery, and days after AT&T was no longer HBO’s owner, Oliver said on his show: “Interestingly, as of Friday, AT&T officially no longer owns us, so it is goodbye from me, Business Daddy. Let me just say this,” he added, giving two middle fingers, “which is frankly two more bars than you have ever had,” he said, referring to the provider’s cell phone coverage.