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Conan O’Brien was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame this past weekend alongside Henry Winkler, Viola Davis, and Ryan Murphy. Congratulations to all of the new inductees! Conan’s longtime friend, Lisa Kudrow, presented him with the award. During his speech, Conan took a moment to address the elephant in the room: the fact that late night television is in big trouble thanks to ratings, loss of profits, and media corporations bowing to the Trump administration in order to avoid government retribution.

The 27th annual ceremony took place at the J.W. Marriott L.A. Live as [Conan] O’Brien…joked, “You know, people say that television is dying, but I want to ask you — if our industry really was in trouble, would we be gathered right now for our greatest night in a downtown Los Angeles Marriott? On a weekend? In August? No!”

The longtime TV host used some of his speech to muse about the current state of late night, acknowledging, “Things are changing fast. I don’t claim to know the future of our beloved medium but I know this, getting the privilege to play around with an hour of television has been the great joy of my professional career.”

He continued, “We’re having this event now in a time when 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. But — this might just 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 as potent as ever, and we have proof here tonight.”

And in the wake of CBS announcing it will end The Late Show with Stephen Colbert next year, O’Brien said, “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. 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.” He added the belief that he thinks TV will always prevail “if the stories are good, if the performances are honest and inspire; if the people making it are brave and of good will.”

[From The Hollywood Reporter]

I think that Conan is right that late-night television “as we know it” is going to disappear, but that doesn’t mean that it’s dying out completely. He’s just observing that viewers now get their news and entertainment from digital platforms like YouTube and TikTok, so these shows need to figure out how to adapt to meet viewers where they are. I honestly don’t know what that looks like, but I’m not being paid the big bucks to figure that out.

Conan’s speech also makes me wish that I could have been a fly on the wall in whatever group text or Zoom call that all of the late-night show hosts had after Colbert’s show was cancelled. I think that during the 2024 campaign season, late night hosts like Colbert and Jon Stewart were playing a game of FAFO. They figured that if Trump won, it would be ratings gold like the first time around, but the republic would still survive. I really think that only John Oliver “got” just how bad it would be. I don’t know what the next phase of the late night landscape looks like, but I truly hope that they can all figure out ways to survive and thrive again.

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