Hi everyone and thank you for tuning in to the 31st episode of Awards Chatter,

the Hollywood Reporters Awards podcast.

I'm the host Scott Feinberg,

and my guest today has been described by the New York Times

as, quote, the hardest working man in show business, close quote doesn't act he doesn't sing and he doesn't dance but he has been right in the middle of many of pop culture's biggest moments of the last 20 years as the host of the reality competition program American Idol since it first

went on the air in 2002, picking up 12 of his 14 primetime Emmy nominations for hosting or producing that show.

As the host of the Syndicated Countdown Radio Program American Top 40 and Kiss F.M.

's Morning Radio show on air with Ryan Seacrest since 2004.

As a host of ABC's annual Dick Clark's New Year's Rock and Eve since 2006

and Daily Talk Show Live with Kelly and Ryan since 2017, winning a best entertainment talk show host daytime Emmy for the latter in 2019.

And as the founder and chairman since 2006 of Ryan Seacrest Productions, which makes

reality TV shows ranging from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution for which you want

a producing primetime Emmy in 2010, to keeping up with the

Kardashians, which has been a ratings machine since 2007, collectively

prompting the Hollywood reporter in a 2011 profile to note that reality TV is quote a genre in

which he is beyond measure the most powerful person in Hollywood close quote as the

New York Times once put it quote quote, it would be an impressive enough

achievement to replace Dick Clark, Casey Kacum, Larry King, or Merv Griffin, but to

inherit all of their mantles at once is a mind-boggling coup, close quote.

I'm talking, of course, about Ryan Seacrest.

Over the course of our conversation, the 45-year-old and I discussed the roots of his ambitions for a career in

broadcasting and how over one weekend around the turn of the century he faced a fateful

...