Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - The State Of The Entertainment Business With Jeff Ross

Episode Date: April 23, 2026

Conan talks to executive producer Jeff Ross about the current landscape of the entertainment industry and why Conan could never pull off a daytime talk show.   Wanna get a chance to talk to Conan? Submit here:  teamcoco.com/apply Get access to all the podcasts you love, music channels and radio shows with the SiriusXM App! Get 3 months free using this show link: https://siriusxm.com/conan. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamco.com slash call Conan. Okay, let's get started. Hey, it's our Thursday episode. Normally we talk to fans in this spot. But today we're going to try something a little different. I'm going to talk to someone who I've known for 32 years,

and he's definitely not a fan. I'm talking about Jeff Ross, executive producer, extraordinaire. He and I started out together on the old late-night show back in the day. And Jeff, you're the guy that understands

the business of Hollywood. I don't. I'm kind of an outsider, an artist, because of a Michelangelo roaming the streets. Painting his great

masterpieces, heading the clouds. But you, you get the business. What's going on in Hollywood these days? I just want to know, Jeff Ross,

what's going on in Hollywood? How's the business? Am I being a sandbag? No, no, this is not a sandbag. This is me questioning you.

What's going on the business? The business, Jeff. I hear that studios are... It's tough out there. It's tough out there. What's going on? I don't know what's happening.

Well, I only hear what's happening because our world is pretty good. Our world is good. Our world is good. Are we thriving in the business? Yes. Okay. Okay. I have no idea.

Yes. I have no idea what we're doing. Nice job. But what a strange world. When we started out together back in 1993, we met in April of 1993. I was 29 when I met you. now I'm older than that. And you've

you've somehow got 70 years older and I've gotten even younger. But now, you know, we've got this podcast empire and I'm having a lot of fun. It's all great. Yeah. But if I had told you 32 years ago,

we're not even going to be working in television anymore. We're going to be basically doing a radio show that goes over the computer. It's crazy. It's crazy. It's crazy. So that's your analysis. It's crazy.

Well, it is crazy. I mean, we have our HBO show. Yeah, that's true. That's true. I didn't mean to discount HBO. HBO's, and we have a lot of fun with that. Yes. Of a good time.

But again, it's a very different, I'm going to say this. I don't think anyone's ever said this before. It's a very different landscape now. It is. Oh, that's a good word. Yeah. You talk about specifically late night or talk shows? Late Night.

You know, I think everyone's talking about late night. Byron Allen's taken over. That's by that's Byron. Byron Allen is taking over from for Colbert show. Is that right? Well, he, yeah, it's interesting. He bought the time. Wait, what's that?

What are you talking about? In other words, he went to CBS. Byron Allen went to, he went to CBS. He's buying the time, the time period. Okay. And he's producing his own show and selling the ads himself. I believe that's how it's working. I didn't know that.

That's fascinating. We could do that. We could just buy time on TV. So essentially, can I do it? Essentially, CBS is like in profit because they just sold the time to him. Wait a minute. So you're saying I could go back on. NBC. They'd probably let me go on at like three in the morning if I bought the time.

If that. What's that? If that. Yeah. Okay, four in the morning. I could give the farm report. There's nobody there left. So you could wind up with- back on NBC. If, you know, listen, this is where you come in because you understand the business. You understand what kind of money our business has. Can my production company, can we buy the four o'clock time slot on NBC 4 a.m. and create our own show and sell all that sweet advertising money that be coming in at 4 a.m. Yeah. Is that a good business model?

Do you want me to get in the weeds on this? Yes. Okay. I don't think NBC controls 4 a.m. Perfect. Then we can just squat there. Squatters right? Yeah.

People that just, you know, when someone, an old hobo shows up in an apartment and just says, I'm here now and they can't get him out. Why don't I squat? We did do that. We did do that. We did do that. We kind of did do that for like 10 years at NBC. All right.

Listen, that's terrible. We did fine for them. I'm just fascinated by this new world. I don't understand it. But now you can buy a time slot. Yeah, he did. It's like syndication. It's essential syndication.

I should go into syndication. It's basically what he did. Okay, what about this? I'm just spitball on ideas here, but this is a chance for people out there to hear our process. I think I'd be great in daytime. I think housewives would love me.

I think I could buy a daytime slot. We could have a syndicated show called, and guess what? It's called Dunin! And it's got an exclamation point and like a happy face. You don't remember. You don't remember that before we went to TBS,

we took a meeting with these guys, a company that's called Debmore Mercury. Right. And they wanted to do a daytime show. Oh, remember it was in Rick's office? It was like the middle of a car accident. It was in Rick Rosen's office, and we did take that meeting.

We took a meeting and they pitched me as a daytime host. Oh, that'd be awful. I'd be so lovable and fun. Oh, you said lovable and fun. I said it would be awful. Why would it be awful? Maybe not then. Because your humor is for the wee hours of the night.

I don't know what time people are listening to this podcast. Well, I'm saying that your, podcast does very well. Your humor, your sense of humor is kind of silly and edgy and goofy. I think Adam could look right now and see when most people listen to this podcast. A lot of, Adam, why don't you jump in this because you also have a good business perspective and you are,

you know, the podcast whisper. Does what I do translate to daytime? Should I have a daytime show? I don't love it. No. Why don't you love it? For the reasons the Sona said, I think, like, I just can't imagine that demographic sitting around on their, you know, watching in their kitchen. Okay. What is it? Explain that demographic out of them. Say it. Say it. What's that demographic? Go ahead. Here's what I will say.

You, as you've aged, your audience has stayed very young. You have a very young, mobile, digital first audience. I think that the podcast, it makes a ton of sense that you're a successful podcast. that you have a big YouTube channel. Can I say this? And I say this, I say this to Adam. In here. I say this to Adam

with all respect. Fuck you. You know what I just learned? I'm on a roll here. Fuck you. You, how dare you tell me I've aged, first of all.

Sorry. Haven't aged at all. Second of all, my, this makes me want to shut down the podcast immediately and the HBO travel show immediately.

And because I'm, I am very reactive. I'm launching a daytime talk show. It's called Conan! And it's two A's C-O-N-A-A-N-Xclamation point. Oh, that saves it. Yeah. It's mostly just to spite me.

Yes. Most of what I do is to spite someone around me. I've done so much despite Jeff. I've done so much despite Sona. And so much my career now is about spiting you. But, listen, we own it. It's syndicated. And yes, it will do terribly, but we get to own how terribly it does.

What do you think? I actually like the idea. It's interesting that that, no, Not the idea of you are. Not the idea of you in daytime. I still don't like that idea. I like this Byron Allen idea, though, that linear is now just kind of like up for sale.

Like, it's real estate. You can just go and buy real estate on linear television. I think that's interesting. There might be opportunities there. Ellen did some daytime. Ellen, when her daytime show did something very popular, which she would come out and she would dance. People know that I'm very physical and stuff like that.

Here's my thing. I come out and dance and I don't stop. I dance for the entire hour. I dance the entire hour. And people come out and pitch their projects in the background and you barely hear them. And I'm rocking out the whole time. And I could get into the kind of shape where I do that for a whole hour of just dance. And tell me housewives don't want to see that.

Is that a derogatory term? Housewives don't want to see that. I don't want to use a drugatory term. I thought you were not. Is that offensive to the real housewives of Salt Lake City? I don't know. I don't know. I'm spitballing here.

Make it good. I was just saying MTV's the. grind was very popular. You could bring back MTV's the grind. Oh, MTV is so gone, though, isn't it? What is MTV now? I think MTV is going to, I don't know, the Paramount thing. We'll see what happens.

Well, well, those VJs do. They're not around anymore. Don't tell me Kurt Loder isn't still on TV. Oh, yes. Talking, Chris Nova Seleck and the rest of Nirvana. I mean, come on. You can't fool me. What am I, Van Winkle?

I fell asleep for 30 years. I need to know what's going on in da business. What do you counsel me to do? You're my consuliary. You're my Tom Hagan. Well, I think you should keep doing what you're doing because it's going really well. Okay.

So keep going with the podcast. Yes. Oh, yeah. And daytime show, should we let that go? It's Conan with two A's and I'll go up to three A's. Here's what I'm going to say. Do you really want to do a daily show again? Never.

Okay. Then forget it. Okay. lose that idea. Wait, but what if he said he did? What are you going to say? Were you going to say something if he wanted to do a deal with you? You know what I learned?

You know what I learned being here just in the last 10 minutes? This is like the suck-up room. This is what goes on in here. Everybody sucks up to come. Not Eduardo. We do not suck up to him. Suck up? Not Edward.

Oh, you'd be great on it. You'd be great at it. I told us about to do it. You told not do it, but you said it'd be great at it. No. No, no. I don't, did she? You can tell you one thing.

You've got to give Eduardo his props. Eduardo despises me and has made it very clear from day one just because occasionally I spill water into the electrical outlets You called me

the Sonic Stalin Yeah you did Yeah you did Yeah you rule with an iron fist You've killed so many of your own people I'm just saying that he doesn't No I get a lot of pushback in this room But I don't know what the next move is

We've got to you don't Well there is well you don't need a next move first of all You can do whatever you want And I think that's frightening. And I think that we've talked about various things and things you might want to be interested in doing, all of which are possible and you can do. You know what? No one's ever approached me about a clothing line, which I find shocking.

Oh, no, that's not true. Gavin. No, Gavin Pallone. Gavin Pallone is my manager. We don't even know what Gavin's story is. We never have. He told me he was a manager years ago. And I've known him longer than I've known you.

That's right. I've known Gavin forever, and he'll come up with these ideas, but they're not grounded in anything. He didn't come to me with a proposal. He just said, you got to sell clothes. And I think for a while, oh, his one good idea. Hair gel. No, hair pomade, a pomade. Right, right.

And I think what, you're shaking your head, no? I think it's a great idea. I just don't know that it was his idea. Oh. Whose idea do you think it was? You can say. I think Liza and I both came up with it on the same day. Okay.

Well, first of all. But I don't want to. But then Gavin wouldn't let it go. That might be true. Okay. Gavin was pushing coffee. He was a coffee brand. And you know what?

Remember his push for coffee brand was people think you're so hopped up on coffee? It was all they would buy the kind of coffee you're on. That was his pitch. Like you should sell Ritalin pills because people think that you're an out of control child. There was also, not tequila, but some kind of he wanted to, he wanted to. I thought it was a whiskey. A whiskey, right. Yeah.

Irish whiskey. He wanted itself. An Irish whiskey. And no self-respecting Irishman will drink what I'm drinking. No clothing company has come to me. Well, not a clothing. No, they have not. Okay.

Well, don't say everything. Well, it's been pitched to you. No, but I think people probably look at the way I dress and think I want to look like him. He's like Don Draper on Madman. No question. Okay. How you doing there? I think that if someone has really long legs, they'll be like, what jeans does Conan wear?

Yeah. Just for the sizing? Just for your sizing, for your purporting. Okay, what about that? I have very, my proportions are extremely long legs. Yeah. Clothing that's tailored for the man who's had some sort of genetic malfunction and has really long legs. You know?

It's like big and tall, but just tall. Yeah, just tall in the leg. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Columnebrient's tall in the leg stores. Okay. And it's just for people who are really long in the leg. Yeah. You know, in the early days.

This room's getting really quiet. Speaking of your legs, in the early days of the Internet and of YouTube. Yep. For a long time, and we could probably, somebody could probably look it up. The biggest clip on YouTube was you in Spanx. Oh, gosh. Yeah. I wish I had Spanx then.

No, it was, it was Juggings. I wore Juggings and that was a huge. It was a thing. It was like a five-second clip and it was humongous. Maybe you should do something that is way outside of what you would normally do. Like. Something charitable and kind? No, I'm saying like a makeup line.

You know how like Rihanna came up with a makeup line? makeup line that's for different complexions. Like you, if you did, if you went up against Rihanna. You know what? Rihanna, Rihanna would shit her pants if she knew I was coming after her. If Rihanna knew that Connor O'Brien was coming out for the pale man in your life, you know, and it's like it covers up an eye vein. And all the stuff that I'm pitching is like, look, we all have a prominent eye vein

that shows up on camera when we're doing a podcast. It's also a really specific problem. Well, this, apply this, and it softens it. And you're freckles. If you have like a lot of freckles, get what? If you have super thin lips and beady, creepy eyes. Jeff, I think we found it. Yeah, I think so.

And I think, I think your pitch is perfect. Jeff, what is? It's pitch perfect. Let's be serious. Back to serious for second. We don't know. I have a question for you that you can answer. all I know is that so many people I know aren't working,

so many of the writers we know, it's very hard to get work now. Yet I go home and all I see are thousands of new streaming shows. There's never been more product available to people, but my sense is that a lot of people aren't working. What's happening? I think a lot of them are made overseas. A lot of them.

And I'm not saying it's the entire issue, but I think a lot of them are made overseas. But what about, so that means that writers don't write? them. U.S. writers don't write, of course, writers write them. Wow.

American writers. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy because that is the puzzling part is I go home and Liza and I are just flipping through. I mean, every time you turn on one of these streamers, they've got seven more. You need subtitles. Seven more shows.

Yeah, you need subtitles. But there's so much product. And then you wonder, well, gee, that's good. I don't think it's the whole problem. I think things got really expensive. and out of control and in this country, in this town of all places. We had a moment on the Oscars that was really set a lot to me, which is we had an idea for the Oscars where I'm backstage and I just had this image flashed.

Sometimes things just come to me as an image. And one image was when I'm coming back, when they're bumping in from commercial to come back to me, I'll be backstage. And it'll be a, I'm rolling on the floor with nine golden retrievers. I'm rolling on the floor with nine golden retrievers. bands playing and then you hear ladies and gentlemen once again your host Conan O'Brien and I leap up and a team

of a whole bunch of people with giant you know linn brushes yeah roll me really quickly and I step out on stage and go hi everybody you know cinematography and it was just this quick silly visual that I loved and

it's really interesting one of the producers said okay this is going to be incredibly expensive and I said really just getting a couple of golden retrievers and she said well the rule is each dog has to be acclimated with the other dog so they all have to live together for like two weeks before they can come on before they can be on camera together and if they're living together all their people their handlers have to live with them too and she was going through all the things and how the cost got up to i think it was

going to cost as much as like uh you know baseline sticker price for like a Porsche It was like $30,000. I think it was more than that. Maybe. I think it was more than 30. But it was so not a Porsche, but a really good high end Nissan leaf. Somebody said, somebody said, what about puppies? And they went more expensive.

Yeah, puppies are more expensive. And basically, it's all this stuff that gets built in over time, these different rules. And I realized in that moment, you know, we used to do things in the 90s. we used to get away with murder because we would think of an idea at 4.30, a really weird idea, and we would throw it out on the air. And then a lot of time goes by, and I think rules change and things. I also think in the Oscars, especially when people hear Oscars, the price goes up. Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right. Yeah. And, but I was in that moment with the Golden Retrievers, I thought, oh, this is a concrete example. of something that's happening that's making me think,

I see why people go to Budapest to shoot something. Because I see why, because, and I've heard that a lot of, I mean, we used for years, for over a decade, for 11 years, we were on Warner Brothers. And it was, you know, humming that things are quieter in some of these lots than they used to be. When we left, they were building new stages, I believe. And everything was packed. And I hear now that's like half empty.

I don't know that. Can I say one thing? I don't know that it's true. I will say that happens whenever Conan O'Brien leaves a place. Makes sense. NBC pretty much collapsed after I like. You know, but that's called the color effect.

When I leave a party, good luck to that party. But yeah, it's fascinating to me. I mean, we're joking around, but then at the same time, I do accidentally have real questions, which is I, you know, we've now been, I got started in 1985. That's ancient history now. Very different.

And you know, it's funny, I was surfing the internet the other day and something came up, I don't know if it was on Instagram or maybe it was Instagram where they know kind of what you're interested in. And they showed me footage of a video store, like a blockbuster. And it was from 1986 or something when I was first out here. with Greg Daniels. And someone had taken a video with like a video camera of all the displays. And now it looks like the footage I used to look at when I was a kid from the 1920s. Oh, and I realized, you know what I mean?

Where people are riding around with wearing straw hats in funny. I remember. Looking at a blockbuster now looks like, oh, that's a speakeasy during. 40 years ago. It's 40 years ago. And I know that young people now see that footage and think everyone looks crazy. We all look like we're in a flock of seagulls. with padded shoulders and we're going,

oh, it's my, I have to rent a video so I can watch Back to the Future again. You know, I'm going to go home and put this into a giant 600-pound machine and watch back to the future. Yeah. And then rewind it. Yeah.

And then, Be kind, rewind. Yeah. Remember we were in Finland and somebody came up to us. We were at a party and somebody came up to the phone. He said, hey, look at your show's on.

Oh, someone showed us our show on a phone. Now this was like how many years ago? Oh, I mean, this would be 25 years ago or something? 20 years ago. I'm looking at it. And we're like, what? Oh, I felt bad because I said, witch. Oh, no.

And I threw hot oil on them. And then she was a witch. Oh. But it had nothing to do with her having the phone. That was completely beside. That's good. No, I remember we were at some event for NBC, and they said, we were in Washington, D.C. And it was some event, broadcasting event.

And this is in the 90s. And they said, we're going to show you something called HDTV, high-definition TV. And they had it on a flat-screen TV. and we walked up to it. It was a football game. And I was watching it and it was the, I mean, I don't think HD TV was commercially available at the time. They were just showing us a sample of this thing

that was going to be coming very soon. I remember being able to see the divvets in the ground. And it blew me away. And now you watch TV, TVs that are probably 100 times more precise than that one. And we're just like, duh, whatever. We get so. innured to this technology.

You know how expensive they were when they came out, and now they're like, it's like a commodity. Oh, you used to get a flat screen TV, and people were like, oh, you're getting a flat screen? Yeah, I went to the bank, and I got a co-signer, and I talked to my accountant. It's being installed tomorrow by a team of scientists. I mean, Adams can speak to it.

Well, this criminal over here can speak to it, too. You know, when the games are on, you just have your phone and you're just watching games live. But that's you, Jeff. I mean, I've seen you many times sitting alone at a restaurant. No, these guys, too. This guy does it while he's engineering this show. Yeah, remember?

Oh, that's right. Eduardo, you like to watch your, well, you call it football. That's right. Yeah. But it's a... I'm watching one right now. No, I'm just kidding. I'm not.

That would have been cool. No, it's a whole, it's all, listen. I was just having to listen right now. Oh, wow, couldn't you, we cracked it. There's no jobs. Things have changed. Yeah, but it's just stunning. You can't ever fire us.

What's on? We have, you have, you have to work for until you're like 90. Because otherwise, we're all fucked. So you should do. You can get a job that's just ridiculous anywhere else. What are you talking? No, Conan, you really have to work till you're 90. Thank you. We'll put it in writing. Just until you're 90. Thank you. Then I'll be 96. Do you think, Jeff, that you have adapted to the new ways? I don't know. In what sense do you mean? Do you know how to work your phone? Do you know how to? Is that the baseline standard? Do you know how to work your phone? I'm saying because David knows full well that I don't know these things. Jeff has never had to call me to help him log into a streaming service like you know. Well, I have had to call you for a few things. Let me know and then. Not a lot.

Yeah. Dig a hole. By the way. Very different. You started making noise. You better put my house on the market. What? Started yelling.

I had to do something. Oh, come on. It gets so dark, so fast. Oh, man. Listen. Oh, no. I bring you in here and then I expose you as a highway killer. Yeah.

Well, you know. He's called the highway mumbler. People are disappearing on the 405 freeway and they, all they find is a shoe and they hear some mumbling. Guilty is charged. Listen. So you say the state of the podcast is good. We should keep going. Oh, yes.

HBO, it's all good. I shouldn't panic. No. All right. Well, listen. But. HBO loves you. They want more of whatever you want to give them. Oh, hey.

Oh, hey. Well, I'm going to give them a daytime show. Oh, Conan! Watch Conan dance for an hour. Oh, my God. As guests, far behind him yell to try to be heard. Can you imagine just me in the foreground dancing and they're in the background going, the book's called Time for Summer? They get frustrated and walk away.

It's going to be great. We're on for three whole days. Yeah. All right, Jeff, thanks for coming in. I think you brought sanity to a very damaged ecosystem. And just for the record, Eduardo despises me. And I get a lot of hate from this room. So I think it's very good.

Yeah, I mean, that's our job. That's what we do. Happy to join in. Very happy. Conan O'Brien needs a fan with Conan O'Brien, Sonam Obsessian, and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Jeff Ross, and Nick Leia. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino.

Take it away, Jimmy. Supervising producer Aaron Blair. Associate talent producer Jennifer Samples. Associate producers Sean Doherty and Lisa Burm. Engineering by Eduardo Perez. Get three free months of SiriusXM when you sign up at seriousxm.com slash Conan. Please rate, review, and subscribe to Conan O'Brien needs a fan

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