HBO stops posting ‘Last Week Tonight’ clips the next day on YouTube

HBO has started delaying when it posts clips from “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” on YouTube.

“I know I usually share a link to our main story here on Mondays, but HBO has decided they’re going to wait until Thursday to post them to YouTube from now on,” Oliver noted. “I hope they change their mind, but until then, you can see our piece about the Supreme Court on HBO, on Max and on YouTube in a few days.”

The message is fairly clear: HBO wants to encourage users to sign up for HBO or Max in order to catch the most recent content from the show in a timely manner.

It’s worth noting that Oliver doesn’t appear to be a fan of the change and appears to put all the blame on the network.

“Last Week Tonight” airs Sundays and the show would typically upload content to YouTube on Mondays, but now that’s being pushed back three days, as Oliver noted.

All that said, the change isn’t surprising as streamers and pay TV looks to keep exclusive content closer to the vest in order to encourage subscriptions. 

The practice of posting its main segment and other content from the show meant that many viewers could likely watch most or all of what they wanted to see for free — which doesn’t benefit Warner Bros. Discovery’s goals of boosting subscriptions to its Max streamer or pay TV offerings.

While HBO monetized its clips from “Last Week” via YouTube’s advertising partner program, it doesn’t publicly announce revenue figures, so it’s not clear how much it was pulling in from posting to the platform or how the new model might affect income.

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Posting content to YouTube, which is largely considered the second largest search engine in the world, likely helped get the word out about the show and helped make it easier to share clips on social media, which could result in a more loyal fan base.

To some extent, users will still be able to share content from the show — they’ll just have to wait a few extra days to do so. That could make content less relevant, though as a weekly show “Last Week” didn’t necessarily have the same timeliness of a daily program.