After only 12 short weeks on the air, John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight has become required watching for anyone catching up on the media while procrastinating their way through Monday morning. While many news magazines and comedy shows have tried and failed to gain viral attention, HBO's Last Week Tonight has become a “must-aggregate” show after very little time on the air. As a result, numerous clips from Last Week Tonight have collected millions of views, and though most Internet videos over five minutes end up lost in the digital shuffle, Oliver’s 13-minute, 17-second discussion of net neutrality has amassed nearly five million views on YouTube.
This success is no happy accident. Oliver and company (no relation to the 1988 animated film) have taken a number of carefully plotted steps to ensure that their show is always a part of the Monday morning conversation. Last Week Tonight, which airs Sundays at 11 p.m., and HBO have created a product that has been engineered to spread across the Internet, from their writing to their web distribution. Let’s take a look at the show’s stunning web success and dissect Why John Oliver Understands the Internet Better Than Anyone.