Between late-night talk shows and entertainment awards ceremonies, Conan O’Brien is the master of all comedy formats doomed to be absorbed and destroyed by YouTube.
This week, Disney and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that Conan will return for a three-peat as the host of the 99th Oscars in 2027. Following Conan’s well-received performance at this year’s ceremony, Disney executives publicly announced that the late-night legend has an open invitation to host the Oscars any year he pleases – so long as it’s either 2027 or 2028. Following the 100th Academy Awards, Disney and ABC will pass on the rights to produce and broadcast Hollywood’s biggest night to YouTube.
But until Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson takes over stewardship of the most prestigious awards ceremony in entertainment, as Conan playfully predicted in his closing sketch from this year’s Oscars, Conan will presumably remain in charge of making the Academy Awards respectful and engaging to an audience that’s grown weary of annual A-list ego-stroking conventions.
However, if Conan continues to perform at a level that only a seasoned TV comedian with a deep knowledge and respect of the arts can manage at the Academy Awards, could he convince the YouTube brass to let him protect what’s left of tradition in the world of awards shows? Because the second the host of the Oscars tells us to “like and subscribe” will be the moment we stop watching the Oscars altogether – our ophthalmologist has sternly warned us not to participate in activities that cause eye-bleeding.
With Conan at the helm of the last two Oscars ceremonies, the event that’s notorious for being a bloated, dragging, obsequious exercise in celebrity-worship has had that combination of high-energy satire and reverence for cinema that makes it worth watching for at least the first hour of the broadcast. Conan’s capacity for over-the-top theatrics and cutting commentary in equal measure is a rare quality in an entertainer, and it’s not one that’s easy to replicate.
For instance, look around at the other major awards ceremonies and their entertainment value relative to Conan’s Oscars; under Nate Bargatze’s spectacularly misguided command, the most recent Emmy Awards in September, 2025 were plagued by the grating tension between the host and the honorees due to Bargatze’s infamous acceptance speech timer gimmick. Even as the top-grossing stand-up comedian on the planet, Bargatze’s abject lack of grace and his inability to read a room full of fellow celebrities made the evening an awkward and mean-spirited affair.
At the 68th Annual Grammy Awards in January, former Daily Show host Trevor Noah served as the master of ceremonies for the sixth and final time. Much like his run on The Daily Show, Noah’s Grammys performance was palatable but forgettable – although, to be fair, it’s basically the Grammys host’s job to be upstaged by the musicians.
The Golden Globes were the only other watchable ceremony from the most recent awards cycle outside of Conan’s Oscars, thanks to the impeccable performance of host Nikki Glaser. Having the greatest roast comedian on the planet preside over the meanest awards show in Hollywood was an inspired choice, but it’s not one that any new media giant that’s about to acquire a hallowed entertainment institution should attempt to emulate – getting the A list to laugh at themselves through gritted teeth is a stunt that can only be pulled once per year.
It’s no secret in Hollywood that awards shows are fighting to remain relevant in the modern media age when short-form content is the biggest growth sector and televised four-hour trophy-dispersals for millionaires don’t hold the same cultural cachet that they once did. And, when YouTube takes over the Academy Awards, their first instinct will likely be to modernize everything they can, cut down on the bloat and remake the ceremony as a smartphone-friendly experience.
But Conan is just about the only part of the Oscars that still works in the modern age, and the Team Coco don has proven that he’s a massive draw in the clipable content space. So, if YouTube is going to preserve any piece of the current Oscars format in the new age, it should be the self-dubbed “host for life” who made the outdated model shine again for a few glorious years.
Of course, we still have two more Oscars ceremonies to go before YouTube takes over, so a lot can change in the entertainment world between now and the time when the tech nerds get to pick the host for the 101st Academy Awards. Maybe Hollywood will make a comeback, and awards show with it. Then YouTube wouldn’t need to fix what’s not broken.
That probably won’t happen, though, and with each new generation growing less patient for any piece of entertainment longer than sixty seconds, the Oscars will likely have to cater to the tastes of an audience that prefers to watch movies in pieces on TikTok. Maybe Conan can keep his job if he turns his monologue into a front-facing POV sketch.
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