‘Last Week Tonight’ Returns to Next-Day YouTube Posting With Season 12 Premiere

If you happened to miss the opening episode of Last Week Tonight With John Oliver on Sunday, worry not! You can now catch up with it on YouTube without having to wait till later in the week.

Starting from this season, HBO has changed its policy regarding the release of the main segment from ‘Last Week Tonight With John Oliver’ on YouTube. Instead of posting it on Mondays as they did before, they now upload it on Thursdays. The reason behind this change, as stated by an HBO representative to The Hollywood Reporter, is to increase viewership on their sister streaming platform Max: “Since the premiere of ‘Last Week Tonight With John Oliver’ on HBO, YouTube offered flexible viewing for the main story and promotional exposure because Max didn’t exist yet. Now we are delaying its availability online in order to encourage those fans to watch the entire show on Max.

Oliver found the decision unsatisfactory and expressed his thoughts on social media: “Typically, I share a link to our main story here every Monday. However, HBO has chosen to delay posting links to YouTube until Thursday instead. I’m hoping they reconsider this decision.

Initially pointed out by LateNighter, HBO released the primary segment focusing on Donald Trump’s return to the White House during his first weeks, ahead of schedule on Monday morning. At the time of publication, the video had garnered 2.4 million views, with YouTube considering a view anyone who watched for at least 30 seconds.

According to reports, there wasn’t a significant drop in viewership for the show on Max due to the delay in uploading it to YouTube last season. Consequently, HBO opted to revert back to its original release strategy, which Oliver prefers.

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2025-02-18 01:54