John Oliver is just as confounded as everyone else about Warner Bros. Discovery's decision torevert the name of Max to HBO Maxafter just two years. On Sunday's episode of HBO's "Last Week Tonight With John Oliver" — which is streaming on, um, Max/HBO Max — the host was discussing President Trump's antagonism toward the press, and Oliver brought up the White House's move to block access to the AP for continuing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as suchinstead of calling it the Gulf of Americaas Trump has decreed. More from Variety 'Mickey 17' Gets Max Streaming Release Date Branding Experts on Decision to Flip Max Back to HBO Max: 'A Corporate Walk of Shame' J.J. Abrams' 1970s-Set 'Duster' Is a Gas Until It Hits the Skids: TV Review "It can take time for people to adjust to a stupid name change," Oliver observed. That teed up Oliver's next rant: "Sometimes, hypothetically, before we can get used to one dumb name" — here the HBO Go logo appeared on the screen — "some genius comes along and only makes it dumber" (HBO Now). "Then, somehow it gets dumber still" (HBO Max) "and against all the odds it becomes even worse" (Max) "before inexplicably going back to the stupid thing it was before" (HBO Max). Oliver also noted that Warner Bros. Discovery execsanticipated a response from him— indeed, they spun it as a sort of tune-in moment. "We just cannot wait for his hot take on this whole rebrand. We think it's going to be pretty hot," WBD streaming marketing chief Shauna Spenley joked at the media conglomerate's May 14 upfront, splashingan image of Oliver with his head face-down on a deskon the theater's big screen Oliver responded with mock outrage: "Please look me in the eyes when I tell you this: Fuck you, don't tell me what to do! I'm not going to do it if you want." "Unless, wait, hold on, maybe you thought baiting me like that would be a good way to stop me from doing it. But on the other hand, how could a company be that smart when they're the same people that came up withso many stupid fucking names?" Oliver said. SEE ALSO:Branding Experts on Decision to Flip Max Back to HBO Max: 'A Corporate Walk of Shame' Last week at the Warner Bros. Discovery advertising upfront, the company announced the switch back to HBO Max, returning the premium cabler's name to its flagship streaming product and trying to undo whatbranding experts have called a big misfire(a "corporate walk of shame," in the words of one). Here's how CEO David Zaslav explained the reasoning behind the about-face: "The powerful growth we have seen in our global streaming service is built around the quality of our programming. Today, we are bringing back HBO, the brand that represents the highest quality in media, to further accelerate that growth in the years ahead." Oliver has bitten the hand that feeds him before on this issue. He slammed his corporate overlords for their decision in 2023 to chop HBO off the streaming service's name, a change it made as it added thousands of hours of content from Discovery's networks. AfterWBD announced the name change to Max, Oliver told his viewers, "Our business daddy took its content purge up a notch and threw the whole HBO out." The following week, he shared a facetiousnew slogan for Max: "Hey, do you like HBO but want ads, the 'Property Brothers' but also don't like HBO? Max! There's entertainment in watching a company die!" Oliver also had expressed his displeasure with WBD's decision in February 2024 to begindelaying the release of full episodes of "Last Week Tonight" on YouTubefor free in an effort to spur paid signups to Max. "It's massively frustrating to me,"Oliver said last fall. "I was not happy with it at all." This February, episodes of "Last Week Tonight" quietly resumed posting to YouTube shortly after they premiere on Max. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival Sign up forVariety's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us onFacebook,Twitter, andInstagram.
