The season contained 24 episodes, each featuring a main segment on that week's news story and several other smaller segments. Last Week Tonight aired on Sundays at 11pm, each episode having been taped hours before. The season was generally well-received, and won an Emmy Award, Peabody Award, TCA Award, Webby Award, and WGA Award. It received an average audience of 4.1million weekly viewers. The main segments were also posted to the show's YouTube channel after airing. The show's fifth episode, which dealt with net neutrality in the United States, was credited with influencing the Federal Communications Commission's decision to strongly regulate net neutrality, beginning a phenomenon dubbed the "John Oliver effect".
Background and production
The host of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver, was the British correspondent on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show.[1] In 2013, Oliver guest-hosted the show for eight weeks while Stewart directed his film Rosewater.[2] Oliver's time as host received positive reviews,[3][4][5][6] with some critics suggesting Oliver receive his own show or take over The Daily Show once Stewart left.[7][8][9] Three months after Oliver's time as host ended, HBO announced it was giving Oliver his own late-night show.[10]
In an interview for U.S. News & World Report, executive producer Tim Carvell said the structure of the show was designed to provide short breaks in content so that the audience did not have "to hear anybody talk... for a half an hour straight", given HBO's ad-free model.[11] These breaks were implemented using comedic act to split up the different segments of the show.[12] Carvell continued that the uncensored nature of HBO allowed for the producers to implement explicit content and for Oliver to swear unbleeped.[11]
Season one aired from April 27, 2014, to November 9, 2014.[13][14] Each episode was taped at CBS Broadcast Center a few hours before broadcasting at 11pm.[15][16] The first season was produced by Avalon Television and aired by HBO in the United States. The executive producers were Oliver, Carvell, James Taylor, and Jon Thoday, with Liz Stanton as producer.[17] Writers include Oliver, Carvell, Kevin Avery, Dan Gurewitch, Geoff Haggerty, Jeff Maurer, Scott Sherman, William Tracy, Jill Twiss, and Juli Weiner, with Joe Perota as director.
Reception
Critical reception
On the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, the season has an approval rating of 94%, with an average score of 8.5 out of 10 based on 31 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "John Oliver successfully transitions from correspondent to host in Last Week Tonight, a biting, often brilliant addition to the satirical news circuit."[18]Metacritic gave the season a score—a weighted average based on the impression of 14 critical reviews—of 76, signifying "generally favorable reviews".[19]
The first episode was generally well-received.[20][21] Many critics compared it to The Daily Show; some thought it did not set itself apart from The Daily Show.[22][23] Contrarily, Darren Franich writing in Entertainment Weekly felt Last Week Tonight maintained similarity to The Daily Show, but set itself apart in the thoroughness and level of detail in the news stories presented; Franich gave the show an A− rating.[20] Another reviewer opined that Oliver should have filled the Comedy Central slot left by The Colbert Report when it moved to CBS instead of "leaping at HBO's offer".[24] Tim Goodman writing in The Hollywood Reporter felt the 30-minute time slot was too short, and that the first episode felt "rushed and jam-packed with information".[25] Multiple reviewers praised Oliver's passion on the topics of the first episode.[20][25]
Ratings
The first episode, aired at 11pm, received 1.1million viewers, rising to 1.4million after a second play. In comparison, The Daily Show averaged 1.5 million viewers simultaneously, and The Colbert Report averaged 1.2 million viewers at 11:30 pm.[14] Across TV airings, DVR, on-demand, and HBO Go, the first season received an average audience of 4.1million weekly viewers, just over that of HBO's other popular late-night show, the older Real Time with Bill Maher.[26][27] In addition, the main segments of each episode were posted to Last Week Tonight's YouTube channel for free viewing; the show's segment on the 2014 Scottish independence referendum received 3million views within its first week.[26]
Coverage of an issue by Last Week Tonight has been credited with influencing US legislature and culture, a phenomenon dubbed the "John Oliver effect".[34][35] The first season's fifth episode, covering net neutrality in the United States, was the first episode to have this effect.[36] After discussing the problems regarding a subject previously regarded as obscure and technical, Oliver argued the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had the power to fix net neutrality problems, and encouraged viewers to submit comments on the FCC's website. Soon after the episode aired, the FCC's website crashed.[37] The FCC chairman Tom Wheeler publicly addressed the video,[38] and the following year, the FCC implemented strong net neutrality rules that classified broadband internet service as a public utility;[39] Oliver was credited with helping to push this change.[40] Furthermore, the 18th episode covered the Miss America beauty pageant, in which Oliver exposed the false claim made by Miss America that they gave $45million in scholarships yearly to competitors.[34][41] The Last Week Tonight writing team, which included four researchers with backgrounds in journalism,[42] analyzed the organization's tax forms and found that only a small percentage of the claimed $45million was actually granted to competitors.[43] At the end of the episode, Oliver told viewers to donate to other women's scholarship organizations instead, specifically naming the Society of Women Engineers. Two days after airing, the Society of Women Engineers had received $25,000 in donations, which amounted to about 15% of the society's average annual donations.[34][44]
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