Conan O’Brien to host 97th Academy Awards, marking his first time as Oscar emcee

Emmy-winning talk show host and comedian Conan O’Brien has been tapped to emcee the 97th Academy Awards, set for March 2, the academy announced Friday.

This will mark O’Brien’s first time hosting the Oscars, with the academy betting on his sharp oddball wit and decades of live TV experience to inject fresh energy into the ceremony and help draw viewers back to a broadcast that has struggled with declining ratings in recent years.

“We are thrilled and honored to have the incomparable Conan O’Brien host the Oscars this year,” academy CEO Bill Kramer and President Janet Yang said in a joint statement. “He is the perfect person to help lead our global celebration of film with his brilliant humor, his love of movies and his live TV expertise.”

The 61-year-old O’Brien has honed his distinctive brand of self-deprecating and absurdist comedy over more than three decades of television, beginning as a writer on “Saturday Night Live” and “The Simpsons” in the 1980s and ’90s before moving into the late-night arena, where he hosted “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” and “Conan.” After ending his 28-year-run in late-night in 2021, O’Brien found a new audience with his hit podcast, “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend,” and recently returned to the screen with his Max travel show “Conan O’Brien Must Go.” (On the film side, his credits are limited to a handful of cameos as himself and voice work in animated fare like “The Lego Batman Movie” and “The Mitchells vs. the Machines.”)

“America demanded it and now it’s happening: Taco Bell’s new Cheesy Chalupa Supreme,” O’Brien quipped in his own statement, “In other news, I’m hosting the Oscars.”

In tapping a seasoned veteran, the show’s producers are banking that O’Brien — much like fellow late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, who helmed the 2017 telecast during the infamous “Moonlight” best picture mix-up — will have the chops to navigate the unpredictability of live TV while delivering some much-needed levity. The Oscars come at a time when Hollywood is grappling with challenges including ongoing streaming upheavals, consolidation, the aftermath of a historic strike and the uncertainty of a second Trump presidency.

Once considered a coveted assignment for comedians like Bob Hope and Billy Crystal, the high-stakes role of Oscars host has grown increasingly difficult to fill, as the spotlight on the show has intensified while ratings have steadily dwindled from their peak of more than 55 million viewers in 1998. March’s telecast, boosted by the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon and hosted by third-time emcee Kimmel, drew 19.5 million viewers, up 4% from the previous year.

In earlier attempts to streamline the telecast and tweak its formula, the Oscars went without a host from 2019 to 2021, and in 2023 the ceremony featured a trio of hosts — Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes and Regina Hall — on a night overshadowed by Will Smith’s slap of Chris Rock.

“Conan has all the qualities of a great Oscars host — he is incredibly witty, charismatic and funny and has proven himself to be a master of live event television,” the show’s executive producers, Raj Kapoor and Katy Mullan, said in a statement. “We are so looking forward to working with him to deliver a fresh, exciting and celebratory show for Hollywood’s biggest night.”