Conan O’Brien will stop hosting the comedian’s nightly talk show on TBS next year and star instead in a weekly variety series on HBO’s streaming platform, the networks’ parent company said Tuesday.
Mr. O’Brien, who succeeded Johnny Carson and Jay Leno to briefly host “The Tonight Show” before moving to cable in 2010, will call “Conan” quits next June, Warner Media announced in a press release.
Warner offered few details about the new program besides it being a weekly variety show. A spokesperson told The Washington Times that additional information about the series was not yet being shared.
“In 1993 Johnny Carson gave me the best advice of my career: ’As soon as possible, get to a streaming platform,’” Mr. O’Brien joked.
“I’m thrilled that I get to continue doing whatever the hell it is I do on HBO Max, and I look forward to a free subscription,” Mr. O’Brien said in a statement.
Mr. O’Brien, 57, cut his teeth as a writer for “Saturday Night Live” and then “The Simpsons,” and he worked as a producer for the latter before leaving the cartoon to launch his career as a TV host.
He hosted “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” on NBC from 1993 through 2009 before succeeding Mr. Leno as the new face of the long-running “The Tonight Show” franchise, albeit for less than a year.
A falling out between Mr. O’Brien and NBC resulted in him leaving the broadcast network after several months and ultimately moving to TBS, which began airing “Conan” in November 2010.
Mr. O’Brien has also hosted several travel specials for TBS since joining the basic cable network, and he is set to remain in that role once the last and tenth season of “Conan” concludes next June.
“We’re incredibly proud of the groundbreaking work that Conan and his team have accomplished during the 10 years at TBS and are so glad that we will continue to have his presence on our air with the ’Conan Without Borders’ specials,” TBS general manager Brett Weitz said in a statement. “We celebrate his success and are glad to see it grow across our WarnerMedia family.”
HBO Max launched in May. The service currently boasts having about 10,000 hours of content available for subscribers to watch online.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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