The big media news this week concerned Skydance Corp., David Ellison’s newly formed Hollywood mega-company comprising Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery, which Ellison (and his father Larry) acquired in a $111 billion debt-addled merger that is set to officially close Oct. 6. What the long-term future of the studio behemoth may look like is yet to be determined, though in the immediate it will surely mean massive job cuts and a change in editorial bent for CNN similar to Ellison and Bari Weiss’s CBS News makeover.
It may also mean that John Oliver and “Last Week Tonight” are operating on borrowed time.
Oliver and his “Last Week Tonight” team extended their contact to 2027 just prior to the merger being finalized, but given how Ellison pulled the plug on Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” — presumably at the behest of his political ally, President Trump — who knows if Oliver and co. will make it to the end of the deal.
And so, on Sunday night, all eyes were on HBOOliver and “Last Week Tonight” to see if he’d address Ellison swallowing up his parent company Warner Bros. Discovery. After all, Oliver has poked fun at the Ellisons on the program in the past. The show’s main story covered the history of Secret Service agents’ protection of the U.S. president pegged to the myriad security breaches that have nearly cost Trump his life due to a mixture of incompetence, lack of resources and a “doing more with less” culture. Since the Department of Homeland Security once hired Hollywood filmmaker Michael Bay to shoot a pricey recruitment ad that aired during the Super Bowl, Oliver’s Secret Service segment culminated with a parody ad for the Secret Service featuring Adam DeVine and Anders Holm of “Workaholics” as inept agents.
However, Oliver opted not to address the news that Ellison’s Warner Bros. Discovery takeover had been approved or its rebranding as Skydance Corp.
Maybe next week?
Source: variety.com
