Last Week Tonight Renewed Through the Prospective Paramount-Warner Merger

John Oliver has extended his Last Week Tonight contract with HBO through 2027, meaning he’ll be around when Paramount-Skydance potentially becomes his new business daddy. The Ellison-owned behemoth agreed to delay its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (which owns HBO) until the settlement of pending antitrust suits by 11 state AGs and the WGA, or June 1, 2027 — whichever comes first. The extension of Oliver’s contract puts Last Week Tonight in the middle of that delay, but the host isn’t sweating it. Because he’s in denial it’s even happening. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Oliver said “That’s the only way that we can really move forward, total denial.”

Oliver isn’t planning for a future that cannot be predicted. “In general, business grownups will say one thing before a merger happens and their behavior can be very different afterwards,” he told THR. “Again, I only know this so deeply because we’ve seen it happen a few times with this company. The rhetoric before a merger and the behavior after, that doesn’t always match up. But there’s nothing you can do, other than to make it clear that you’re not going to be amenable to changes. I think we’ve made that pretty clear over the year. It’s just not worth it.” But if it all collapses, Oliver can just pivot to full time soap opera stardom. There’s always more dastardly plots for Z and his World Safety Bureau.