January 2009 archive

Ryan Seacrest’s LA radio show is heading to KDMX Mix 102.9 in Dallas Fort Worth. Ryan’s show will air in the afternoon drive time slot following a shake up at Clear Channel Communications. This is the latest in a long list of stations airing Ryan’s show and more stations are likely to follow.

Will the show break out of North America and head over to the UK, Australia or other English-speaking countries? We’d like to see that happen!

Louisville auditions came from Churchill Downs, the home of the Kentucky Derby and more than 11,000 hopefuls turned up for the first round in the ‘blue grass state’. The judges arrived to a great fanfare — literally. A memorable start to the day for Paula Abdul who mentioned it during a discussion about the auditions on Ryan’s radio show yesterday. Paula admitted on Ryan’s radio show that she does sometimes get annoyed with the contestants and agreed with Ryan that Simon’s ‘yes or no?’ were the most annoying three (or two) words they were hearing from him this year.

Another fantastic video from Ryan Seacrest’s YouTube Channel

Nicolette Sheridan apparently got the memo about Have a Go at Ryan week judging by her response when Ellen DeGeneres asked her about dating Ryan:

NS: “That’s gross”
Ellen: “Why? What do you mean? Do you know Ryan? He’s a great guy.”
NS: “I’ve met him. I did his radio show and he was very rude about me the next day.”
Ellen: “No. What did he say?”
NS: “It was nasty. Yeah and untrue. Yeah, I don’t like him.”
Ellen: “I’ll talk to him about that. That doesn’t sound like Ryan.”
NS: “You should have a word with him.”
Ellen: “He’s a sweet guy.”

Shirtless photos of Ryan… this is what we’ve been hoping for since we heard that he was planning to visit Simon over the holidays!

See the photos on JustJared or bauergriffinonline

I’ve seen variations on this headline everywhere today, and I’m somewhere between amused and bemused at the reaction I’m seeing. Did I miss the memo for Have a Go at Ryan Seacrest week?

Ryan’s radio show continues to expand across the States. What about us? Guys, ship it to the UK! Okay, we can listen to it online (the three hour show anyway – it’s not possible to listen to the five hour show outside the States without engaging in jiggery pokery) and it’s on in so many places that we’re planning to work out if there are any times of the day when you can’t tune in to On Air with Ryan Seacrest, but we’d still like it to be broadcast in the UK. Or how about a subscription model for those of us outside the advertisers’ countries of interest who’d pay to listen to the full five hour show online.

There was a lot of discussion online about the changes and redundancies at Clear Channel Communications this month. Coming from a country where national radio broadcasting has been both the norm and the gold standard for longer than I have been alive (e.g. BBC Radio One), I don’t see any problem with coast-to-coast radio shows (particularly if they’re as good as Ryan’s…) but I do feel for the people who are losing their jobs. It’s understandable that Ryan gets criticism from people who are affected when his show replaces a local DJ, but it’s actually not his fault that the old model is no longer sustainable. Having listened to Ryan’s syndicated show on many different stations (sometimes the same show on the same day on different stations if my schedule doesn’t allow me to listen to the whole show from one station), I know that syndicating nationally doesn’t necessarily mean losing the local touch. Some of the stations bodge the show together really badly for the online audience and it comes across as quite stunted — sometimes with duplicated material or dead airtime (the streaming server may be to blame for some problems, but not all), whereas other stations mix the On Air stuff they download really well with sound bites from a local DJ, or have clips of Ryan introducing songs from their playlist and introducing a local DJ, just as he’d introduce Manny for his On the Streets section in KIIS LA. Ryan fans can recognise the canned clips fairly quickly (and have probably already listened to the celebrity interviews via the podcast if they’re from a previous day), but the average listener probably doesn’t notice the joins so much when it’s done that way and it makes for a much better listening experience when the station puts in the effort to do it properly.

[Moved from January 2009 news]

The web is buzzing with the news that ‘Brangelina’ refused to talk to Ryan on the Red Carpet at the Golden Globes. There are a few theories circulating for the reason behind this.

in the January edition of Bon Apétit magazine

In the interview, Ryan describes his most memorable meal at The French Laundry, reveals his comfort foods and an unusual collection, and dishes on the American Idol judges’ eating habits.

American Idol is back! In the UK it goes out on ITV2 at 2000-2200 on the 15th January and 2100-2300 on the 16th January.

Source: www.ryanseacrest.com

American Idol returned to our screens with two two-hour programs showing auditions from Phoenix, Arizona in the Southwest and Kansas City, Missouri (not Kansas, just to confuse those of us this side of the pond) in the Midwest (central US).

10,000 hopefuls attended the first round of auditions in Arizona. The sob stories and weird comments were out in force, but there was plenty of Ryan Seacrest to keep us happy (though we’d be happier if he didn’t stand quite so close to the Grand Canyon… let’s hope it was chroma key!). Ryan was looking hot in dark trousers and a dark blue check long-sleeved shirt over a dark teeshirt. That’s a very good look on him. Really good. The “this is American Idol” montage at the start was great and we loved the season preview clips, particularly the one where Ryan and Simon are laughing and pointing at something and giving off the ‘naughty schoolboys at the back of class’ vibe.

What a tease — we want to know what they’re looking at! We may have been hallucinating by this point, having realised we have Ryan on our screens every week for the next few months, but it looked like Simon was picked right off his feet for a hug by a giant pink Easter bunny. Bet he loved that!

Ryan Seacrest, Hollywood’s modern-day answer to Mother Teresa, gives kids a Christmas gift money can’t buy.