Conan O’Brien shared his predictions for the future of late-night television at a Saturday night award show, following declining viewership for the programs and the cancellation of Late Night with Stephen Colbert.
O’Brien was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame on Saturday in Los Angeles, where he addressed the uncertainty around late-night television, saying there is “a lot of fear about the future of television, and rightfully so.”
“Yes, late-night television, as we have known it since around 1950, is going to disappear. But those voices are not going anywhere,” O’Brien said.
O’Brien, known for his stint hosting Late Night and Tonight Show on NBC from 1993 to 2010, also hosted the TBS talk show, “Conan,” for 11 years.
“Streaming changes the pipeline, but the connection, the talent, the ideas that come into our homes, I think it’s as potent as ever,” O’Brien said. “We have proof here tonight.”
O’Brien said that the life we’ve all known is “undergoing seismic change,” more specifically regarding the shift from cable to streaming.
Second-quarter ratings revealed Fox News’ Gutfeld! dominated late-night television with an average of three million viewers, as other programs reported viewership was down 9% among total viewers year-over-year.
Questions surrounding the future of late-night television transpired after Paramount announced the cancellation of Late Night with Stephen Colbert last month, citing “financial decisions” as the reason behind the move.
Many supporters of Colbert claimed CBS canceled the show because he criticized President Donald Trump, and that parent company, Paramount, was trying to appease the president to get approval for a company merger, which execs denied.
The Federal Communications Commission approved Paramount’s $8 billion merger with Skydance last month.
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Paramount settled a lawsuit with Trump, after he claimed the company engaged in election interference when CBS 60 Minutes deceptively edited former Vice President Kamala Harris’s interview during the 2024 presidential election.
Colbert joked that the $16 million settlement was a “big fat bribe.”
O’Brien said people like Colbert are “too essential to go away,” and that Colbert will “evolve and shine brighter than ever in a new format that he controls completely.”
“Technology can do whatever they want. It can make television a pill. It can make television shows a high-protein, chewable, vanilla-flavored capsule with added fiber,” O’Brien said. “It still won’t matter if the stories are good, if the performances are honest and inspired, if the people making it are brave and of goodwill.”
