Conan O'Brien Is Exiting Late-Night Talk Show Biz

The world of late-night talk shows is losing a veteran. Conan O'Brien will end his nightly TBS show in June and switch to a weekly format on HBO Max, reports the Hollywood Reporter. Both TBS and HBO Max are owned by WarnerMedia. O'Brien will continue to produce his popular Conan Without Borders travel specials for TBS. The 57-year-old O'Brien has been a fixture of late-night talk shows since 1993, when his original show launched on NBC. As Variety recounts, his tenure with NBC ended in controversy in 2010, when he quit after the network gave him the Tonight Show slot, only to yank it back and place it back in the hands of Jay Leno.

O'Brien announced the latest development in typical Conan fashion: "In 1993 Johnny Carson gave me the best advice of my career: ‘As soon as possible, get to a streaming platform,'" he said in a statement. "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." O'Brien also has a popular podcast, Conan Needs a Friend. No word yet on when the HBO Max series will debut. (Before launching his late-night career, O'Brien wrote a "game-changing" Simpsons episode.)