Conan O’Brien’s late-night show is set to return despite much of US television production grinding to a halt amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Every other major late-night host, including Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon Jimmy Kimmel and James Corden, has suspended work on their respective shows to avoid mass gatherings of people.
However, O’Brien plans to bring his eponymous show back at the end of the month, without a live studio audience, with production staff working from home and guests appearing via a video feed.
The show will be shot on an iPhone, network TBS said.
“The quality of my work will not go down because technically that’s not possible,” O’Brien said.
Jeff Ross, O’Brien’s longtime executive producer, added: “Our first priority is the health and well-being of everyone in the Team Coco family, and our second priority is to try and find a way that we can do our jobs safely, from home, and contribute some entertainment for our fans out there who may be hungry for silly distraction.”
New episodes of Conan will begin airing on TBS from March 30, the network said.
My wife must have known about Coronavirus when she booked us separate rooms at this hotel, 6 months ago.
— Conan O'Brien (@ConanOBrien) March 18, 2020
Conan’s late-night colleagues have been busy on social media while their shows have been suspended.
Kimmel and Colbert have shared their monologues online while Fallon is filming clips for YouTube.
The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah has been producing digital shorts. Television production in the US has been hammered by the Covid-19 outbreak, with major shows including Stranger Things and The Walking Dead affected.