John Oliver slams HBO for delay in ‘Last Week Tonight’
John Oliver is simply not happy because his late-night show on HBO, Last Week Tonight, came so late on YouTube.
He expressed his frustration in an interview with The New York Times podcast The Interview. “It’s massively frustrating to me,” he said on the delay in releasing his show’s episode on the video-sharing app. “I was not happy with it at all.”
He argued that the nearly four-day delay made the show stale. But this official decision has been taken for a reason.
According to IndieWire, Warner Bros. Discovery wants to increase the Max subscribers. For this, the studio prioritizes HBO over Youtube for segment releases.
“What I love about having the show on YouTube is that we can reach beyond HBO subscribers. That feels really important to me,” Oliver continued.
“I really, really appreciate the fact that they do that. I would rather they did it straight after the show the way we’ve always done it, but I’m very grateful that they are willing to still do it at all.”
Earlier, HBO confirmed the decision in a statement, “When ‘Last Week Tonight with John Oliver‘ premiered on HBO, the convenience of watching on Max did not exist.”
“So YouTube allowed flexible viewing for the main story as well as promotional exposure. We are now delaying that availability and hope those fans choose to watch the entire show on Max.”
