John Oliver Slams Paramount’s Acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery: “Not Great News”

John Oliver is known for his frequent jabs at the executives of his own network, HBO, often humorously referring to them as “business daddy.”

“Looks like we might soon have a new business daddy,” announced the Last Week Tonight host in his latest episode. “Not exactly thrilling news. To echo the thoughts of anyone who’s ever unintentionally activated their Roku remote, ‘Oh crap, I’m stuck in Paramount now. How on earth do I escape?’”

This comment came shortly after Paramount unexpectedly outdid Netflix in a bidding war, securing a deal to purchase HBO’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, for a staggering $110 billion. Netflix backed down after the offer led by David Ellison escalated to $31 per share.

Further into the episode, which primarily focused on the use of police body cameras and included a critique of Dan Bongino’s “peculiar” program, Oliver took a moment to poke fun at the dismal viewership of Paramount+. “It’s pointless for the police to accumulate thousands of hours of footage that no one will watch. After all, hoarding unseen footage is essentially the role of Paramount+.”

“What will they do? Take over and shut us down immediately? I’m genuinely curious,” he continued.

It remains to be seen whether Ellison and his team will allow Oliver the same freedom to critique them and their operations once the takeover is officially sanctioned.

Previously, Oliver had humorously speculated whether Paramount or Netflix would become his “new business daddy,” likening the uncertainty to a Mamma Mia! scenario but “less enjoyable and significantly less sexy. And by the way, if it turns out to be Netflix, my apologies for all the times I’ve criticized your lineup as a ‘who’s who of who the heck is this?’”

In 2019, Oliver lambasted AT&T, the then-owner, for its “atrocious” mobile service.

Following David Zaslav’s Discovery taking control in 2022, Oliver expressed a “vague impression” that he was “torching my own network for the insurance payout.”

Less than half a year later, he criticized the constant renaming and restructuring of HBO Max. “Our business daddy decided to ramp up the content purge and tossed the entire HBO brand overboard,” he quipped.