John Oliver tackled the Trump Administration’s defunding of public media for his remaining “Final Week Tonight” episode of 2025, detailing how the choice to get rid of $1.1 billion from the Company for Public Broadcasting earlier this yr has severely impacted radio and TV stations, notably in rural areas. So Oliver and “Final Week Tonight” are doing their half to assist: The present has launched an public sale web site, John Oliver’s Junk, the place 65 objects are presently up for bid — together with an authentic 1987 portray by late PBS icon Bob Ross, “Cabin at Sundown,” which at press time was fetching $51,000.
The concept for the public sale truly got here from the Bob Ross property, which lately bought three Ross authentic work at public sale to help public broadcasting, elevating $662,000.
Oliver introduced the “John Oliver’s Junk” public sale on Sunday’s present, and stated the public sale would proceed by way of Nov. 24. “We’ve truly accrued a bunch of bizarre artifacts on this present over time that we might positively public sale off to boost some a lot wanted cash,” Oliver stated. “I’m proud to announce final week tonight’s first ever public sale in help of public media. That is actual!”
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Followers of “Final Week Tonight” will acknowledge a number of of the objects being auctioned: Amongst them, Russell Crowe’s jock strap (“worn by Russell Crowe within the main movement image Cinderella Man and later bought by ‘Final Week Tonight with John Oliver,’ throughout season 5 of the present, as a part of Crowe’s ‘Artwork of Divorce; public sale during which Crowe bought his private belongings to pay for his divorce”), and “Mrs. Cabbage Oliver” (“John Oliver’s on-screen spouse, married throughout an on-screen marriage ceremony officiated by Steve Buscemi. A part of ‘Final Week Tonight’s’ season 9 section on AI-generated artwork during which John marries a cabbage within the studio”).
Additionally: A big, gold-plated re-creation of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s balls (“Sculpture of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s scrotum, a part of the season 12 section on presidential libraries”), 5 wax Presidents of the US, golden Adidas sneakers (“Gold sneakers John Oliver promised to put on in a season 2 episode of ‘Final Week Tonight with John Oliver’ if scandal-ridden FIFA President Sepp Blatter stepped down”).
Amongst different objects: A visit to New York to satisfy Oliver; “a case of Cabernet SauvignJohn, a wine years within the making by ‘Final Week Tonight with John Oliver,’” and an opportunity to seem in a photograph over Oliver’s shoulder throughout an episode — together with two VIP tickets to a dwell taping of the present.
Oliver’s “Neighborhood” colleague Joel McHale additionally appeared within the episode, which featured a flashback to when McHale hosted a pledge drive for Seattle’s PBS station in 1999 — and couldn’t cease speaking about “Mr. Bean.” To commemorate that, McHale has signed a DVD set of “Mr. Bean” episodes, which can also be being auctioned.
Oliver spent a lot of Sunday’s episode discussing public broadcasting’s predicament: “Public media has been actually modern in reaching underserved audiences. It was public TV station that first invented closed captioning within the Seventies. Stations across the nation supply programming in Haitian, Creole, Navajo, Vietnamese and plenty of different languages. However as you undoubtedly know, it’s now going through a severe risk, as over the summer time, Congress determined to get rid of $1.1 billion which have been allotted to fund public broadcasting for the following two years.”
Oliver took on how Republicans have attacked public media since nearly the second that President Johnson first signed the legislation placing the CPB into existence, and he defined how criticism of a “liberal bias” inside public media is absolutely about one thing else: “there generally is a good religion debate over bias within the media, liberal or in any other case, however I’ll level out that a number of the time, what conservatives declare as ‘liberal bias’ is commonly simply issues like exhibiting there’s a protracted historical past of racism in America, or that homosexual folks exist — making it exhausting to interpret these criticisms as something aside from bigotry. And but, arguments like these simply received used to justify zeroing out all the funds of the CPB.”
Oliver additionally famous the irony that by reducing budgets, native stations will now should rely extra on nationwide content material popping out of main markets like New York, as an alternative of manufacturing important local people programming. “The irony is, the extra native stations budgets are slashed, the extra they might come to depend on programming produced in these city echo chambers. As the manager director of a station in California stated, the native stuff that’s so vital to folks might be the stuff that can go away.”
Oliver famous that public radio and TV stations have been behind important native investigative reporting in areas the place there are few different media shops. And “Final Week Tonight” has relied on public reporting for items it has carried out on topics akin to HOAs, juvenile justice and deadly injection.
“Public Media could be how essential data will get disseminated in communities with restricted broadband or cell service,” he stated. “Public Radio stands out as the solely option to distribute lacking and endangered individuals alerts. It will also be essential throughout an emergency like a hurricane.
“Frankly, it’s at all times been a bit bizarre how little we fund public media, given how important it may be. Right here within the U.S., public media is a world outlier in how little federal funding it receives. Even earlier than these cuts, federal spending amounted to lower than $1.60 per capita — in comparison with nations like Norway, Sweden and the UK, which commit practically $100 or extra,” he added. “And analysis exhibits a optimistic correlation between the energy of public media programs and the well being of democracies…. We’d ideally work on a long run repair for the best way the CPB is funded. And as an alternative of giving Congress the facility to take its cash away each two years, we’d institute some type of tax or licensing payment that would reliably fund it. That’s one thing folks have been recommending because the CPB was first created. Sadly, we don’t dwell in that universe proper now and till we do, public media is in a dire state of affairs now.”
