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John Oliver Offers Warner Bros Discovery a New HBO Max Motto

Published Mon, 22 Aug 2022 07:57:21 -0500

We're getting a sense that John Oliver has a new recurring theme for his HBO late-night news/opinion show Last Week Tonight, and we're pretty sure that Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) boss David Zaslav & Co. can expect some very uncomfortable Monday mornings in their near future. Not exactly pulling his punches last week over how WBD has reportedly been killing or pulling films & shows to help alleviate the company's debt issues via tax write-offs (with even more since then), Oliver had some additional jabs to serve up during Sunday night's edition. And it all started with… Sarah Palin?! Yup…

At the beginning of reporting on the horrific news that Palin might be entering politics again (of course), Oliver made the joke that we're repeating the past (and not in a good way) while taking a dig at one particular HBO Max Original series. "Sarah f***ing Palin is back, and it's like 2008 all over again. She's running for office, the U.S. entered the bear market, and 'Sex and the City' is making spinoffs that it quite frankly does not have the material to back up." Of course, Oliver was referencing the sequel spinoff series, And Just Like That. Later in his report, Oliver referenced a quote from The New Yorker referring to Palin as "Sarah, Inc." in the way that the politician interacts with crowds. The late-night host took the setup and ran with it, saying "Sarah, Inc." sounded more like "a title of a sitcom starring Kat Dennings that's already quietly disappeared from HBO Max." And that's when Oliver cut to an impromptu "mini-promo" for the streamer with a graphic that read: "HBO Max: It's Not TV. It's a Series of Tax Write-Offs to Appease Wall Street."

For their part, WBD has maintained the position that was laid out in a statement earlier from the company: "As we work toward bringing our content catalogs together under one platform, we will be making changes to the content offering available on both HBO Max and discovery+. That will include the removal of some content from both platforms. At the same time, we're already starting to bring our content catalogs together like the launch of the new CNN Originals Hub on discovery+ and a curated collection of Magnolia Network content coming soon to HBO Max."

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