Using puppets, a Scottish unicorn, a breakdancing Abraham Lincoln and a Salmon Cannon, the first year of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight has been a tremendous success for HBO. Averaging about one million viewers per episode, the 24-episode run became one of the network’s biggest non-Game of Thrones highlights and has catapulted John Oliver into the conversation of the biggest names in television (as this celebrity-laden video will show you).
Even Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have taken notice of Oliver’s success and know that their former satirist-in-arms has become the new face of the late-night fake news world.
Funny thing about the fake news, though: Oliver has actually been more interested in bringing real news stories to the attention of his viewers, whether it’s how translators that have helped American Forces overseas are having incredibly difficult times becoming citizens, how the sugar industry has influenced policy changes or in his 2014 finale, how the lottery is basically a sham.
In my first piece about Oliver, I talked about how he took a while to find his sweet spot. But by digging into stories that were underreported or even completely ignored, he shared with his viewers things that were easy to relate with. It steadily grew a following over time, and viewers who were expecting copycat television relative to Stewart or Colbert instead got well-researched takedowns or informative pieces that separated him from his peers.
The stories of his creative control are well-known by this point. HBO gave him a huge amount of freedom and let him create the show he wanted with little to no involvement, and the lack of sponsorship dollars meant he could handle any news story he wanted. That resonated with viewers as demonstrated by the show’s ratings, and even more so on YouTube. By putting his segments up right after they premiered on HBO, YouTube became a haven for Oliver and his team.
As the calendar turned to November, Last Week Tonight gained its one millionth subscriber. He responded in the way he only could:
(I can’t wait to review the R&B album.)
By the time you read this article, Oliver’s videos will have reached 150 million views. In only seven months, he has built quite the following and it looks to be making his stock that much more valuable. Oliver’s contract was for two 24-show seasons on HBO with an option for a third. There’s no coincidence about the need for that third option for 2016. Jon Stewart’s contract at The Daily Show ends in 2015, and with Colbert already taking over for David Letterman, Comedy Central might be in need of a replacement.
If Stewart does step away, it opens things up for Oliver as the No. 1 choice, but with such a great year behind him, the creative freedom of HBO, and a format that lends itself to perhaps a better product than The Daily Show, would he want to go back to Comedy Central? It’s also interesting to note that with HBO launching online-only subscriptions in 2015, Oliver could become one of the faces of HBO’s new media venture.
Oliver owned the summer and has ended his first non-Daily Show season behind the desk on an extremely high note. When the time comes to exercise that option, it will most certainly be an interesting choice between the certainty of HBO and an opportunity to continue the brand that got him the HBO show in the first place. Not bad for having only seven months of his own television show under his belt.
