Conan O’Brien isn’t holding out hope for a late-night television comeback.
Speaking at the 27th Television Academy Hall of Fame ceremony on Saturday, the former Late Night host declared that the traditional talk-show format is on its way out—for good.
“Late-night television, as we have known it since around 1950, is going to disappear,” O’Brien said, after being inducted into the Hall of Fame by Friends actress Lisa Kudrow.
Still, the comedy veteran stressed that while the structure of late-night may be crumbling, its strongest voices aren’t going anywhere.
Conan O’Brien appears onstage during the 26th Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on March 23, 2025. / Craig Hudson / REUTERS
He pointed to The Late Show host Stephen Colbert, who revealed last month that CBS was scrapping the iconic program he’s hosted for nearly a decade. The final episode is expected to air in May.
“People like Stephen Colbert are too talented, and too essential, to go away,” O’Brien said. “It’s not going to happen. He’s not going anywhere. Stephen is going to evolve and shine brighter than ever in a new format that he controls completely.”
Executives cited shifting viewer habits and declining ad revenue as the primary reasons for ending The Late Show, stoking further anxiety over the future of late-night television.
Stephen Colbert arrives for the Saturday Night Live 50: The Anniversary Special at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City on February 16, 2025. / Caitlin Ochs / REUTERS
O’Brien acknowledged those forces and cautioned that the “fear” over television’s future is very real.
“The life we’ve all known for almost 80 years is undergoing seismic change,” he said. “But this might just be my nature—I choose not to mourn what is lost. Because I think in the most essential way what we have is not changing at all.”
O’Brien himself stepped away from late-night in 2021, concluding a 28-year run that ranks among the longest in the genre’s history, according to The Kennedy Center. He remains an influential figure through his podcast, Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, which had surpassed 660 million downloads as of 2023.
“If the stories are good, if the performances are honest and inspired, if the people making it are brave and of good will,” he said, “then somewhere, two weird siblings huddled in their crowded living room just off Route 9 outside Boston are going to be moved.”
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