Conan O’Brien Prefers Podcasts to Late-Night TV These Days

Comedian Conan O’Brien lamented the decline of late-night television as it transitioned from “a giant machine that fires out cash” to a struggling industry competing with the millions of social media videos posted every day.

“It’s a little like Detroit and automobiles,” O’Brien said while speaking at the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

Despite the downturn, the former late-night host said that people will still find ways to be creative and profit off of comedy. He pointed to the launch of his own podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend in 2018, which features him talking with high-profile figures ranging from actor Adam Sandler to former President Barack Obama.

“I’m much more comfortable in my situation now,” O’Brien said.

In 2022, SiriusXM purchased O’Brien’s Team Coco media company and Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, which is now the 19th most popular podcast in the US, according to Edison Research. O’Brien said he was happy to be part of a larger machine that provided support while still letting him be himself.

“The secret to my success, other than being crazily lucky, is that I rigidly maintained my persona, my personality,” he said.

For nearly three decades, O’Brien was a staple of late-night television, hosting Late Night with Conan O’Brien and The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien on Comcast Corp.’s NBC followed by Conan on Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.’s TBS. Conan ended in 2021 after an 11-year run amid falling ratings for late-night television.

“In true sort of Irish tradition, I wanted to leave the party before I was asked to leave,” O’Brien said.

The former writer for Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons is set to return next year for his third consecutive year as host of the Oscars ceremony.

O’Brien said that even if television writers’ rooms are disappearing and that late-night TV is in decline, he still thinks comedy will survive.

“There’ll be ways that people get together and make things, and really talented people will profit from it,” he said.