Conan O’Brien is returning as Oscars host in 2026

Conan O’Brien is returning to the Oscars stage in 2026. The late-night host and comic will preside over the 98th Academy Awards, set for March 15, the movie academy’s management mentioned Monday.

“The one cause I am internet hosting the Oscars subsequent 12 months is that I need to hear Adrien Brody end his speech,” O’Brien mentioned in a press release.

This 12 months was O’Brien’s first time main the present, which attracted its largest broadcast viewers in 5 years regardless of the profitable film, “Anora,” being comparatively small. An estimated 19.7 million viewers watched the 97th Academy Awards ceremony earlier this month, in response to broadcaster ABC, with a giant raise amongst individuals aged 18 to 49, pushed by cellular and laptop computer watches from youthful viewers. It was additionally probably the most watched prime-time leisure present of 2025.

“Conan’s distinctive comedic fashion completely captured the second, and I am excited to have his skills again onstage subsequent 12 months to helm one other indelible efficiency,” mentioned Craig Erwich, the president of Disney Tv Group, in a press release.

Subsequent 12 months O’Brien may also be surrounded by a well-known workforce, with Raj Kapoor and Katy Mullan returning as govt producers of the present and Jeff Ross and Mike Sweeney as producers. Academy CEO Invoice Kramer and Academy President Janet Yang mentioned in a joint assertion that it is an honor to be working once more with the group behind this 12 months’s broadcast.

“This 12 months, they produced a vastly entertaining and visually gorgeous present that celebrated our nominees and the worldwide movie neighborhood in probably the most lovely and impactful method,” Kramer and Yang mentioned. “Conan was the proper host — skillfully guiding us by way of the night with humor, heat and reverence.”

The present additionally succeeded in social media metrics, outperforming each the Grammy Awards and the Tremendous Bowl, in response to Oscars organizers. This was the primary time that the present was streamed stay concurrently on Hulu, which was not with out its glitches.

The timing of the announcement of subsequent 12 months’s internet hosting and producing groups — lower than a month after this 12 months’s Oscars — is unusually early for the movie academy and ABC.

O’Brien, 61, spent practically three a long time as a late-night host. In 2015, he turned the “longest-working present late evening discuss present host” within the U.S., following David Letterman’s retirement, in response to TBS. 

He has hosted different high-profile awards exhibits, together with internet hosting the Emmys in 2002 and 2006. 

Earlier than he turned a widely known TV character, O’Brien was a author for “Saturday Evening Dwell” and “The Simpsons.”