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The king of multitasking the entertainment industry

By John Patterson
THE GUARDIAN, LOS ANGELAES
Thursday, Jun 28, 2007, Page 14

Ken Warwick, executive producer of American Idol, Ryan Seacrest, the show`s host, and the show`s judges Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell, from left, answer questions during a media presentation on the hit television show in 2007. PHOTO: AP

I am in the heart of the Ryan Seacrest Machine. The 32-year-old coast-to-coast DJ, host of the smash-hit American Idol, is doing what he does best: talking into a microphone. As he lends his distinctive zip to the openers, teasers and voiceovers for today's edition of E! News, broadcast by the Los Angeles-based E! TV channel, you begin to appreciate the balance of stone-faced seriousness and wink-wink facetiousness it takes to deliver disposable celebrity chit-chat convincingly.

There's some initial sparring - quite possibly solely for my benefit - between Seacrest and his producer about a celebrity caller on tomorrow's show.

Producer: Isn't Paris Hilton calling you tomorrow?

Seacrest: Paris? Paris is in jail! How am I supposed to know what she's gonna do tomorrow?

Producer: You're supposed to be getting a phone call.

Seacrest: Really? Who told you that?

Producer: My sources keep me wise... "Collect call for Ryan Seacreast from Lynwood women's detention facility!" You ready for that? Okay, we're spinning!

And then Seacrest nails it, first take, no rehearsal. "We're now at five days until Paris Hilton walks out of Linwood! And support for the socialite is still as strong as when she went in E! News obtained a copy of a letter from Paris, sent to one of her fans. The note, in her own distinctive block-printing, reads in part... 'The letters I receive really do put a smile on my face as I sit here in my cell, sad and alone... ' Paris fans showed up at the socialite's slammer yesterday for a peaceful protest. They wore 'Free Paris' T-shirts."

And so it continues, with the promise, in other news, of a "plastic surgery bombshell!" to come, and "secrets to picking the right bathing suit when you're preggers!"

And... that's a wrap.

Unless you're a scandal-drunk, celeb-happy devotee of E! News, which goes out daily on satellite and cable in the UK, you may never have heard of Ryan Seacrest. In the United States however, he is ubiquitous and as instantly recognizable as the president - and, in some quarters, almost as fiercely derided.

With his famous dyed, gelled hair and its distinctive, oft-mocked Tintin cowlick, he's the well-scrubbed embodiment of the PG-rated American pop mainstream. He is also a carefully sculpted brand, each gig part of an overarching strategy to build his own TV and radio empire. He's already halfway up a ladder it took other men - some of them former heroes of his who are now his friends, and whose jobs he has inherited - five times as long to climb.

Seacrest is a driven workaholic. "Failure? Scared to death of it," he says. "When I moved here from Atlanta at 20 in 1994, I packed my car and told my parents if I didn't make it I'd move back within a year. I knew I didn't ever want to have that conversation. Mine's a pretty simple strategy: there's not a lot of talent here, but there's a lot of hustle. I have to be in every place I can, and be busy. And why wouldn't I want to maximize this opportunity? It'd be crazy to be lazy."

He's up at 4am most days to host his nationally syndicated, market-leading radio show, On Air With Ryan Seacrest, a coveted nationwide morning slot on KIIS-FM that he inherited from the DJ Rick Dees. He used to drive over to Burbank to tape the show, but E! built Seacrest his own in-house studio to cut 90 minutes of drive-time from his minutely scheduled workday.

As songs play he busies himself doing filler announcements for American Top 40, the chart show he inherited from another legendary DJ (and voice of Shaggy on Scooby-Doo), Casey Kasem, who filled the chair for more than 30 years. Then it's off to the E! TV studios to film segments for E! News, a bracing brew of celebrity tidbits and light scandal. He also hosts the network's red-carpet event programs, as part of a US$21m three-year contract he signed last year.

Nine months of the year, he heads to the CBS studios to host from 5pm to 7pm American Idol, the six-year-old TV talent show and pop- cultural benchmark, which features as one of its recurring highlights the spiky faux-enmity between Seacrest and Simon Cowell. Occasionally he guest-hosts for CNN anchor Larry King, whom he regards as "one of the best live broadcasters in the world." By 8.30pm he is usually in bed.

Seacrest is a radio man at heart. "My infatuation for the medium started really young," he says. "All I wanted to do when I was a teenager was get dropped off at a radio station - one of the ones I listened to - and watch how the shows worked. After a point it was about showing up and driving people crazy, driving the van to promotions and sneaking on the air. I've been going to a radio station every day of my life for 14 years, so I'm conditioned to getting up early and going to a studio."

Seacrest sees himself - or his branded on-air personality - as "accessible, self-deprecating and plugged in to pop culture. That's the show I like to do, that's the person I am and the person I like to be." To my eyes it seems that the secret of Seacrest's ease with himself, on-air and off, is that Real Ryan and Radio Ryan are essentially the same person.

"The new paradigm we're into now is this multitasking, multimedia world that we live in. It used to be you'd work for one person and do one job, but my strategy has always been to try and put my tentacles into a lot of different things while delivering for everybody simultaneously, on all the platforms - TV, radio, the Internet."

That includes his own production company. "My company is in the business of content, delivering content, so whether you see it or taste it or hear it or smell it, that's what I do every day. It's delivered on TV or radio or the Internet, but our point of view is always that we're trying to deliver compelling, interesting, entertaining content, not changing the world; it's supposed to be consumed as entertainment, and it doesn't really matter where it's consumed. I'm not the distribution branch. We're more like the kitchen, then the waiters distribute it to the diners."

One of his ambitions is to break into the British market, with which he is familiar thanks to the heavy presence of expat Brits on the Idol production staff (they've also taught Seacrest the art of "taking the piss.") He has a product that he isn't talking about yet, designed - "not repurposed" - for the UK market. But he'll be happy if it merely juices up his joshing rivalry with the wealthier, currently more successful Cowell. The pair conduct a constant friendly "war" in the media. In our conversation, Seacrest describes Cowell as "fifty-ish," "really old" and "a man who literally walks past a wall of mirrors every time he leaves the house, and only drives convertibles - because he needs to be seen at all times".

Expect Cowell's sneering, well-placed counterblast to surface about 24 hours after you read this. And expect Ryan Seacrest to beat him at his own game one day. Time is on his side.

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