Whoever his business daddy ends up being, John Oliver is sticking around HBO for at least one more year.
The Last Week Tonight host has signed a new one-year contract extension, keeping his weekly series on the air through the end of 2027. Oliver is currently midway through the show’s 13th season; the new deal will cover Season 14.
Oliver’s compensation under the new agreement is unknown. His 2023 renewal was reportedly worth about $30 million annually—or roughly $1 million for each of the show’s 30 episodes.
The relatively brief extension is notable given the uncertainty surrounding HBO’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, whose proposed merger with Paramount is on hold while an antitrust challenge works its way through the courts.
It also represents a change from Oliver’s last renewal. HBO handed Last Week Tonight a three-season pickup in December 2023, carrying the show through its current season. HBO’s other weekly late-night host, Bill Maher, signed a two-season renewal in January that will keep Real Time on the air through 2028.
Oliver acknowledged the conspicuously convenient timing of his new deal in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter’s Mikey O’Connell, who broke the news of his renewal.
“You just took the option to extend your contract with HBO for another year, taking you through 2027, which feels like a very convenient amount of time for a man in your position,” O’Connell observed.
“Yeah,” Oliver replied with a laugh.
The host, who has repeatedly joked about HBO’s revolving collection of corporate owners, described Paramount and other possible future overseers as “various prospective business daddies circling, no one fully willing to commit just yet.”
Asked how he was handling the latest delay in the Paramount deal, Oliver said the show’s strategy was simple: pretend none of it was happening.
“Nothing’s happening and everything has stayed the same,” he said. “That’s the only way that we can really move forward. Total denial.”
Oliver was considerably less trusting when it came to any assurances that Warner Bros. Discovery or Paramount executives might offer before a deal closes.
“In general, business grownups will say one thing before a merger happens and their behavior can be very different afterwards,” he said. “The rhetoric before a merger and the behavior after, that doesn’t always match up.”
Oliver added that he and his staff have already made clear that they would not be “amenable to changes” imposed by a new owner.
Since premiering in 2014, Last Week Tonight has become an awards-show darling, collecting 32 Emmys, two Peabody Awards, and a closet full of other statuettes, including honors from the Writers Guild and the Golden Globes. The show is up for another three Emmys in September.
