Word: idol
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...most successful host ever: he holds the Guinness record for most hours on camera (15,188, and counting). When the aliens who have monitored our broadcast signals invade, they will demand to negotiate the terms of our surrender with Regis. Now the producers of American Idol are hoping he will do for their new Ed Sullivanesque variety competition (one auditioner balances a 300-lb. oven on his face) what he did for another retro summer show called Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. "Every demographic loves him," says Talent executive producer Ken Warwick. "When we bring him onstage, the audience...
...that, theoretically, anyone can do but that talented people have done terribly. (Sorry, Roseanne.) So with millions of dollars riding on the choice--and a raft of daytime and prime-time chat and competition shows searching for talent--what is, as Simon Cowell would say on Idol, the "X factor" that makes the perfect host...
...make hosting look like something a well-coiffed orangutan could do. By which measure Ryan Seacrest is the greatest TV personality who has ever lived. "You've got to be able to have the wind knocked out of your sails, like when Simon attacks Ryan, and bounce back," says Idol executive producer Nigel Lythgoe. Ur-host Griffin--who once hired Seacrest for a failed game show but is not a producer of Idol--gushes over Seacrest's stage-managing of the live show, whiplashing from moments of snark to heartbreak to comedy faster than you can say Seacrest...
Sure, it's easy to call Seacrest glitzy and vapid. Heck, let's do it: he is perfect for Idol because he so gamely embodies its glitziness and vapidity. Everything about his precision-moussed pate and cliffs-of-Dover grin screams, You are watching a show about show biz! But this is why the man can afford the finest hair gels and dentrifices: the successful host is wise enough to be the fool. There are exceptions, like the beneficent and vengeful god Oprah, but America tends to like its TV hosts risible: fussy Alex Trebek, funny-haired Donald Trump, screwball...
...present and absent, ceding your guests the spotlight; you must know what to say and, more important, what not to. Several hosts and producers interviewed for this article repeated the importance of "getting out of the way" of the show. Seacrest says that his job is to make Idol "clever," but adds, "That doesn't mean I say something clever. I know when Simon is gearing up to say something. I can read it on his face. A host has to allow space for moments to be created...