Conan O’Brien ‘winding down’ TBS show, sets date for final episode

Conan O’Brien plans to wrap up his TBS show in the coming weeks, the late-night host and comedian said Monday, setting the stage for him to pursue a new project set to air on HBO’s streaming service.

Mr. O’Brien announced during the latest installment of his long-running TBS show, “Conan,” that its final episode is scheduled to air June 24, capping off 11 seasons and nearly 1,500 episodes to date.

“We are winding down our TBS show. The plan is to reemerge on HBO Max sometime in the near future with what I think will be my fourth iteration of the program,” Mr. O’Brien said.

“Some of you are wondering why am I doing this? Why end things here at TBS?” he added. “And I’ll tell you: because a very old Buddhist monk once told me that to pick something up, you must first put something down.”

Mr. O’Brien, 58, worked on “Saturday Night Live” and later “The Simpsons” prior to hosting late-night programs on NBC from 1993 through 2010, including a brief stint helming “The Tonight Show.”

A dispute with NBC led to Mr. O’Brien leaving the broadcast network for TBS, the cable station formerly known as Turner Broadcasting System, which subsequently began airing “Conan” in November 2010.

Time Warner, the former parent company of TBS and HBO, was acquired by AT&T in 2018 and rebranded as WarnerMedia. Mr. O’Brien announced in November he would end his TBS show for one with HBO Max.

“I just want to point out that for the past 11 years, the people at Turner have been absolutely lovely to me and everyone here at the staff,” Mr. O’Brien said Monday. “They gave me a home when I needed one most and I am eternally grateful and very proud of what we accomplished here.

“And so what I’d like is I’d like these last couple of weeks to be a fond look back at all the absurd madness that my team and I have concocted,” Mr. O’Brien continued. “Best of all, I just want to point out, there will be shockingly few, if any, references to Donald Trump because that’s always been my favorite kind of comedy.”

WarnerMedia has not yet announced when Mr. O’Brien’s next project will launch.