Real Time with Bill Maher is heading to the Republican and Democratic national conventions for two live half-hour specials each. Better still, you won’t have to be an HBO subscriber to watch. The premium network announced today that viewers will be able to live-stream them via the Real Time YouTube channel. Plus, they’ll be posted to Maher’s Facebook page the day after they air on HBO.
The first two special episodes will come during the RNC and air on July 20 and 21. After that, the DNC editions will be available on July 27 and 28. All four will air live on the East Coast at 11 p.m. ET, with the West Coast getting the tape-delayed version at 11 p.m. PT.
“I think people are going to be watching in record numbers, and afterwards, they are going to hopefully be people who want something a little more than the usual gang at CNN or MSNBC or Fox News,” Maher told Variety in an interview.
Bringing the specials to multiple platforms, like YouTube and Facebook, was important to the talk show host, and his push brings Real Time to a wider potential audience. “I’ve been trying to get that to happen for a long time,” he said. “I believe that it’s only good for our show when people see it on different platforms.”
The specials will add to Maher’s already busy workload; he’ll film them in addition to his usual weekly Real Time episodes. Like other hosts, though, his plan allows him to offer commentary on a presidential election that has been eventful and widely discussed, to say the least.
Whether or not things get crazier — as Maher said he hopes they will with a challenge to Trump at the RNC — he will add some much needed humor the coverage of the political circus. You won’t want to miss it.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
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YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.