Conan O’Brien said that late-night shows will eventually “disappear” from television amid the “seismic change” in the industry, but that hosts like Stephen Colbert — whose Late Show run will end next year — are “too talented and too essential to go away.”
Speaking at the Television Academy Hall of Fame on Saturday, O’Brien — a veteran of Late Night, Conan, and (briefly) The Tonight Show — said that, “Yes, late-night television, as we have known it since around 1950, is going to disappear. But those voices are not going anywhere.”
“There’s a lot of fear about the future of television, and rightfully so. The life we’ve all known for almost 80 years is undergoing seismic change,” O’Brien said (via Variety).
However, O’Brien, who successfully pivoted to streaming and podcasting after his late-night run ended, added that those platforms are how younger generations are now ingesting comedy, as traditional television and its constraints are “a high-protein, chewable, vanilla-flavored capsule with added fiber.”
“People like Stephen Colbert are too talented and too essential to go away,” O’Brien said. “Stephen is going to evolve and shine brighter than ever in a new format that he controls completely. So, technology can do whatever they want.”
O’Brien added of an evolving landscape devoid of traditional late-night TV, “I choose not to mourn what is lost, because I think in the most essential way, what we have is not changing at all.”
From Rolling Stone US
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