‘Last Week Tonight’: John Oliver Bashes Former Parent Company AT&T Over Past Business Practices
deadline.comJohn Oliver did not mince words for his show’s former owners.In a tirade attacking companies that have committed unsavory business practices, the Last Week Tonight host zeroed in on AT&T’s monopoly status before their 1982 anti-trust settlement and called them “our business daddy who left for cigarettes and never came home.”“They were actually the largest firm on the planet, back then, and broadly well respected and considered good.
Which is to say, completely unrecognizable from the AT&T of today,” Oliver said.Earlier this year, Discovery completed its acquisition of WarnerMedia from the telecom giant in a blockbuster $43 billion dollar sale.
AT&T owned the company for three rocky years and was responsible for shedding some of WarnerMedia subsidiaries such as Crunchyroll.Oliver is known for not hiding his disdain for his former parent company and has previously jabbed them in multiple segments over the years.The British American host spent part of his main segment detailing how AT&T tried to stamp out smaller competition in the 1970’s by “choking them off before they get started.”“Now, obviously, f*** AT&T now and forever,” Oliver said.Broadcast networks’ fall lineups and schedulesNew and returning series on broadcast, cable and streamingSeries that made it or didn’t make it in 2021-22
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