Conan O’Brien made a daring prediction about late-night TV amid Stephen Colbert‘s Late Present cancellation.
On Saturday, August 16, O’Brien was inducted into the Tv Academy Corridor of Fame alongside Viola Davis, Don Mischer, Ryan Murphy, Mike Put up, and Henry Winkler. Whereas accepting the consideration, the comic spoke of the function that late-night tv has performed in society.
“I’ve dabbled in different issues, however that’s the place I’ve lived,” the previous host of Late Evening With Conan O’Brien, The Tonight Present With Conan O’Brien, and Conan mentioned. “And for these of you beneath 40, late-night tv was a service designed to distract school college students till science would excellent the web and on-line pornography. And boy, did they get that proper.”
O’Brien additionally weighed in on the way forward for tv — and particularly, the state of late-night exhibits — amid the streaming takeover.
“It’s all electrifying a brand new technology of viewers,” O’Brien identified earlier than making his prediction. “Sure, late-night tv, as now we have identified it since round 1950, goes to vanish. However these voices aren’t going wherever. Folks like Stephen Colbert are too proficient and too important to go away.”
Moreover, O’Brien addressed CBS ending The Late Present in Could 2026 and his prophecy for Colbert’s future.
“Stephen goes to evolve and shine brighter than ever in a brand new format that he controls utterly,” he predicted. “So, expertise can do no matter they need. It might probably make tv a capsule. It might probably make tv exhibits a high-protein, chewable, vanilla-flavored capsule with added fiber. It nonetheless gained’t matter, if the tales are good, if the performances are sincere and impressed, if the individuals making it are courageous and of goodwill.”
Circling again to being inducted into the Tv Academy Corridor of Fame, O’Brien ended on a lighter word.
“That is the consideration of a lifetime. It means all the pieces to me,” he advised the viewers. “I’m surprised to be on this firm. I don’t assume I deserve it, however I’ll take it. And my grandfather at all times mentioned, take what you may and ask for extra. And I’m going to try this tonight.”