Conan O’Brien: Colbert Is ‘Rightly Pissed’ Amid Late Night Upheaval

Conan O’Brien says Stephen Colbert is “rightly pissed” as he navigates the final months of The Late Show in an environment increasingly shaped by political and corporate pressure.

In a just-posted interview with David Remnick on The New Yorker Radio Hour, O’Brien framed Colbert’s frustration as both personal and institutional.

“I think Stephen very rightly is pissed,” O’Brien said. “He’s got a big staff and he cares about those people and that is excruciating. I’ve been in that situation.”

With The Late Show’s final episode set to air in May, attention has shifted from the circumstances of its cancellation to CBS’s handling of the program’s final stretch. Earlier this week, Colbert and the network engaged in a public dust-up after he said CBS had blocked him from airing an interview with Texas State Representative and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico, citing heightened FCC scrutiny over Equal Time rules.

CBS disputed that characterization, prompting a fiery on-air response from Colbert.

It was not clear whether O’Brien’s interview with The New Yorker was recorded before or after Colbert’s latest clash with CBS. But his comments suggested that he views such conflicts as symptoms of larger structural forces reshaping late night.

“These giant glacial plates are moving,” he said. “You are doing the best you can.”

According to O’Brien, audience fragmentation, corporate consolidation, and risk-averse network leadership have combined to place unprecedented pressure on late-night programming. While hosts remain the public face of their shows, he argued that many of the most consequential decisions are being made far above them.

O’Brien suggested those pressures are not limited to CBS or to Colbert alone.

“There is definitely a thumb on the scale,” he said. “With Jimmy Kimmel and the FCC, that was just outrageous and wrong.”

Having left his own late-night program in 2021, O’Brien said he now benefits from a level of creative independence that network hosts rarely enjoy.

“I think I reach more people now either through the podcast or the travel show,” he said. “I have all this freedom to be me in different ways in different formats.”

“This old format is going away,” O’Brien said, “but it’s being replaced by other ways to connect with people and be funny and be satirical and be probing.”

O’Brien himself will return to broadcast television in March as host of the 98th Academy Awards, a high-profile assignment that places him back at the center of live network comedy at a moment of heightened political sensitivity. In the interview, he acknowledged the tightrope inherent in such events but emphasized preparation and authenticity over provocation.

Watch O’Brien’s entire conversation with Remnick at the top of this post.