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?’”
On Thursday, Netflix said it was declining to raise its bid for Warner Bros. Co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters released a statement 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 a segment about robocalls and went on a rant over the company’s support 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.
