While everyone is abuzz about Kris Allen’s upset victory over Adam Lambert on Season 8 of  American Idol, I am more interested in discussing the hardest working man in show business, America Idol host, Ryan Seacrest.

There’s a reason he’s at the top of his game.  First off, what he does on Idol is not easy.   As a tv coach I will tell you there are only a handful of people who can do live television, bounce back and forth between the script on the teleprompter and spontaneous ad libs, hit all their time cues, trade barbs with a master like Simon Cowell AND be present and empathetic with people as they experience glorious highs and devastating lows.  It’s impressive.

Also impressive is his work ethic.  Besides his Idol duties, Seacrest runs a hugely successful production company (Keeping Up With The Kardashians) hosts and produces E! News Live + all those red carpet events, regularly guest hosts Larry King Live etc plus is on the radio everyday in  Los Angeles with his afternoon radio talk show on Star 98.7.

But Ryan wasn’t always the King Of All Media.   When I first met Ryan around the turn of the century he was the young, good-looking and personable host of a hugely popular radio show in Los Angeles and I was head of talent development for VH1.   VH1 was a cable music channel back then and it was a logical step to go from radio to television.  Only it didn’t turn out to be that easy.

Ryan met with everybody and every network and finally, after a few years, did a couple of pilots which didn’t go anywhere.  He was successful at a young age so I  always wondered how these failures affected him.  Was it easy to dust himself off and keep going or did it take serious introspection to pick himself up?  Whichever, he kept plugging away and ended up with two shows on the air.  Both tanked.

At some point, when you have the words string and failure in the same sentence you may rightly consider re-thinking your goals and throwing in the towel.  You might want to spend a few months or years in the fetal position crying your heart out and licking your wounds.

Not Ryan Seacrest.

Inquiring minds what to know:   What Makes Ryan Run?

For many of us mortals having the #1 radio show in the #2 market in the country would be a dream come true.  Not to mention lucrative.  Seacrests’ radio contract has been north of a million dollars for  at least a decade.   It would have been entirely reasonable and  respectable for him to quietly stick to his day job.  But he didn’t.

Granted American Idol looked like a winning bet when Ryan Seacrest was approached to co-host the first season with Brian Dunkelman (remember him?).  It was already a massively successful British format and had the full weight of Fox behind it, but something — and it wasn’t money — made Ryan Seacrest say I’m going to go for it one more time.

I’d like to nominate Ryan Seacrest as the Be Your Own Head Coach Person of the Week.

cheers!

Barbara Barna Abel/Asst Head Coach