Oliver reportedly sacks his agents

[Bob Jersey]

LateNighter spotted a Belloni piece (the Puck reporter is soft-paywalled) saying that J.O.'s latest contract did not include a pay increase, and may have had a reduction in spots... so John fired WME...

https://latenighter.com/news/report-john-oliver-drops-agents-over-last-week-tonight-deal/ (link)

B

[PGage]

FWIW, Here is the actual piece by Belloni, fairly summarized/copied in linked piece. I will include the invitation to subscribe just to be fair to Puck.

Only thing I would add is a question - does Oliver pay his staff out of the pot of money he gets from HBO, or do the staff get paid separately from HBO? If the former, then at least part of Oliver’s pique is likely that, given inflation, he is being forced to either effectively cut his staff’s pay, or cut his own to make up the deficit.

====

“…if you were forwarded this email or are new to the WIH community, click here to become a Puck member.”

• Oliver sacked his agents after HBO disappointment: John Oliver, among the highest-paid talents on television, recently fired WME because he didn’t get the big raise he wanted in his new HBO deal, per three sources familiar. Oliver, who was making about $30 million for 30 episodes a season of the Emmy magnet Last Week Tonight, re-upped at the end of 2023 for another three years. But given the overall contraction in TV and the fiscal restraints at HBO parent Warner Bros. Discovery, the new Oliver deal actually penciled out to about the same salary or even a slight reduction, depending on how you look at it.

  Oliver thought he deserved more… and maybe he did. But more likely, this seems like another recent example of a top-tier talent punishing his representatives for the new realities of the marketplace. There’s probably a good joke to be made about a TV host who positions himself as a man of the people yet privately throws a tantrum when his own insanely high salary isn’t quite high enough for his liking, but John would do that joke way better, so I’ll pass. (Oliver’s manager, David Martin, and publicists didn’t get back to me. HBO declined to comment. Usual disclosure: WME represents Puck but not me.)

Sent from Gmail Mobile

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tvornottv+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/b808113d-93ea-47c9-8e78-8e5d0a2957e8n%40googlegroups.com.