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.
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