Conan O’Brien has addressed industry fears about the future of late-night TV, predicting that while it might “disappear”, fellow talk show host Stephen Colbert would stick around.
Last night (August 16), O’Brien accepted a TV Academy Hall of Fame award, something he admitted came at a strange time amid dwindling viewership and a seemingly politicised crackdown on late-night TV hosts.
“There’s a lot of fear about the future of television, and rightfully so,” he said while accepting the award, per Variety. “The life we’ve all known for almost 80 years is undergoing seismic change.”
It comes after Stephen Colbert announced last month that his long-running show would be ending, and the Late Show franchise itself would retire.
Verbal barbs were later exchanged between he and US President Donald Trump over the cancellation, with Trump declaring: “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired”; while the host addressed the situation by telling the politician: “Go fuck yourself”.
O’Brien continued: “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. Streaming changes the pipeline, but the connection, the talent, the ideas that come into our homes… I think it’s the focus. We have proof here tonight.”
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Nodding to the success of series like Abbott Elementary and Hacks, O’Brien said Hollywood’s creative class would continue to flourish. “It’s all electrifying a new generation of viewers. Yes, late-night television, as we have known it since around 1950, is going to disappear. But those voices are not going anywhere. People like Stephen Colbert are too talented and too essential to go away.”
Reflecting on his decades of hosting late-night shows, including on Late Night With Conan O’Brien, The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien and Conan, he joked: “And for those of you under 40, late-night television was a service designed to distract college students until science would perfect the internet and online pornography. Boy, did they get that right.”
He then turned his attention to Colbert once again, saying he was “going to evolve and shine brighter than ever” in a new format with more creative control.
“So, technology can do whatever they want,” O’Brien said. “It can make television a pill. It can make television shows a high-protein, chewable, vanilla-flavoured capsule with added fibre. 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.”
Meanwhile, fellow comedian and TV host Rosie O’Donnell recently shared fears that The View will be axed for not politically aligning with Trump.
She regularly feuded with the President during her own stint on the daytime talk show and remains one of his most vocal critics, having moved to Ireland after he was re-elected and dismissing threats from him over her US citizenship.
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