HBO Delaying ‘Last Week Tonight’ Segments on YouTube
The 11th season of Last Week Tonight With John Oliver premiered on HBO Sunday night — but not on YouTube on Monday morning.
Per both HBO and Oliver, the premium cable outlet is now holding back segments from the show for a few days after episodes premiere. That’s a change from past practice, when people could watch the show’s main story on YouTube the morning after an episode aired.
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Oliver sounded displeased with the change in a post on X on Monday afternoon: “I know I usually share a link to our main story here on Mondays, but HBO has decided they’re going to wait until Thursday to post them to YouTube from now on,” he wrote. “I hope they change their mind, but until then, you can see our piece about the Supreme Court on HBO, on Max, and on YouTube in a few days.”
HBO says the decision to hold back on posting Last Week Tonight segments to YouTube is an effort to get more people to stream the show on its sibling streaming platform, Max. “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,” an HBO spokesperson tells The Hollywood Reporter. “We are now delaying that availability and hope those fans choose to watch the entire show on Max.”
As of publication time Monday afternoon, the most recent video on Last Week Tonight’s YouTube channel was a season 11 trailer from two weeks ago. The channel has more than 9 million subscribers, and segments from the show posted there almost always have view counts (which in YouTube parlance means someone watched at least 30 seconds of a video) in the millions.
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