Conan O’Brien Says a YouTube Show Made Him Realize Late Night Is Over
Conan O’Brien told The Hollywood Reporter that his 2024 appearance on Hot Ones was the exact moment he understood the late-night talk show format is winding down — and his episode’s 15 million-plus views proved the point.
In a March 2026 interview with THR, O’Brien said his appearance on Hot Ones in 2024 was the moment everything crystallized. Hot Ones is the YouTube interview series where celebrities answer questions while eating increasingly spicy chicken wings.
“That was the moment the scales fell from my eyes,” O’Brien told THR in March 2026. “If a guy can do World Series numbers with overhead that looked, to me, to be about $600, and you have every big star lining up to do his show or Chicken Shop Date … that’s when I profoundly understood that late night shows are in trouble.”
His episode has received more than 15 million views. That’s for a single episode of a show that, by O’Brien’s own estimation, runs on roughly the cost of a decent dinner for two. No studio audience. No house band. No monologue writers’ room.
O’Brien didn’t hedge on where things are headed. “I’m of the mind that yes, these shows are going away and will become something else,” he said.
O’Brien hosted Late Night with Conan O’Brien from 1993 to 2009, briefly hosted The Tonight Show from 2009 to 2010 on NBC, and later hosted Conan on TBS until 2021.
Today, O’Brien remains active with a podcast and a series on Max. He is also hosting the 2026 Academy Awards for the second consecutive year. Far from fading into irrelevance after leaving late night, he’s operating across streaming, audio, and live events rather than being tethered to a single nightly broadcast.
O’Brien’s comments came within a broader conversation about the ending of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The interview surfaced a genuinely touching exchange between the two hosts about walking away from the format.
Colbert told THR that O’Brien had been gently nudging him toward life after late night for some time.
“We were out, a few Emmys ago, and he kept saying, ‘I want you to know there’s a lot of fun to be had when this is over, so don’t feel like you need to stay.’ It almost hurt my feelings, but he was just being kind. He Dutch uncle’d me,” Colbert told the outlet.
O’Brien’s acceptance of the format’s evolution didn’t mean he was at peace with every force reshaping the landscape. He offered a pointed caveat.
“But I don’t like when other malign forces intervene, because they’re trying to curry favor. That pisses me off,” O’Brien said.
The interview also referenced recent turbulence involving Jimmy Kimmel Live!. The show was temporarily suspended after comments made by host Jimmy Kimmel about Charlie Kirk sparked backlash. Disney suspended the show after two major affiliate owners pulled the program from their stations. The show later returned following a brief hiatus.
That situation underscores a tension O’Brien seems aware of: there’s a difference between a format naturally evolving and external pressures forcing it into retreat. One is audiences migrating to platforms that better serve them. The other is something else entirely.
O’Brien’s Hot Ones observation is instructive about what fills the void left by traditional late night. With more than 15 million views on his episode alone, and with “every big star lining up” to appear, the show functions in many ways as a modern late-night desk — just without the desk, the network, or the overhead.
Production of this article included the use of AI. It was reviewed and edited by a team of content specialists.
