Conan O'Brien Ending Late-Night Run in June After Nearly 30 Years

Months after the announcement that Conan O'Brien would end his long-running show at the end of the [...]

By Russ Burlingame

Months after the announcement that Conan O'Brien would end his long-running show at the end of the current season and head to HBO Max for a variety-style weekly series. Today, O'Brien (through the official Team Coco Twitter account released a short video giving fans the official date: Conan, the TBS series that launched in 2010 after O'Brien's controversial departure from The Tonight Show, will end on June 24. The series launched on November 8, 2010, and stars O'Brien alongside his longtime sidekick, Andy Richter.

This is the first time in O'Brien's 30-year talk show career that he begins a new chapter that isn't surrounded by controversy. When he took over Late Night With Conan O'Brien from the departing David Letterman in 1993, Letterman was moving from NBC to CBS after a lengthy battle with NBC, who passed him over to give The Tonight Show to Jay Leno after the retirement of Johnny Carson. With Leno's retirement, O'Brien got The Tonight Show, but Leno wasn't ready to retire, and instead moved to a 10 p.m. show, which bombed, creating low lead-in ratings for O'Brien. When the series was cancelled, NBC gave Leno The Tonight Show back, citing disappointing ratings from O'Brien and a desire to keep Leno in their stable. O'Brien stepped away from the show, from NBC, and ultimately took on the Conan show at TBS.

You can see O'Brien's announcement below.

Even "Team Coco" itself gets its name from the social media campaign to support O'Brien following the news that he would be removed from The Tonight Show. While the production company that produces Conan is technically called Conaco, Team Coco underwrites a number of projects, including a family of podcasts that include Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend, Literally! With Rob Lowe, and 3 Questions With Andy Richter.

"28 years is a monumental achievement in late-night television," Brett Weitz, GM for TNT, TBS, and truTV, said in a statement back in November. "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. We celebrate his success and are glad to see it grow across our WarnerMedia family."

"Conan's unique brand of energetic, relatable, and at times, absurdist, comedy has charmed late-night audiences for nearly three decades," said HBO Max chief content officer Casey Bloys. "We can't wait to see what he and the rest of Team Coco will dream up for this brand new, variety format each week."

For the next two months, you can watch Conan at 11 p.m. ET/PT on TBS.

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