John Oliver says goodbye to 'business daddy' AT&T in epic fashion: 'Two more bars than you've ever had'
. And DirecTV is owned by AT&T, which recently sold their interest in Oliver’s parent company WarnerMedia following their merger with Discovery.
“Just so you know, the provider that he’s referring to there is DirecTV, which is a subsidiary of a parent company that I will not mention, because I don’t even like uttering their name out of my mouth,” joked Oliver. “Interestingly, as of Friday, AT&T officially no longer owns us, so it is goodbye for me, business daddy, and let me just say this”—Oliver added, before holding two middle fingers up—“which is frankly two more bars than you have ever had.”over their involvement in OAN’s rise—“with about 90% of its revenue generated from its AT&T and DirecTV deals,” Oliver explained—not to mention the fact that AT&T executives came up with the idea of creating OAN in the first place.
Well, OAN’s finally been dropped from DirecTV—“and not a moment too soon,” offered Oliver, since the channel’s coverage of Russia’s war on Ukraine has been despicable, including baselessly questioning whether a Ukrainian maternity hospital was even bombed by Russian forces. OAN has subsequently decided to sue DirecTV for $1 billion, claiming they violated “a non-disparagement provision” in their contract with AT&T since shows they own spoke ill of them—including Oliver’sThey cited Oliver calling OAN, among other things, “a ragtag band of fascists… who are happy to give a platform to batshit election fraud theories from America’s most out-of-breath pillow fetishist.