This morning, FOX held a conference call with none other than Ryan Seacrest, who you may know from, well, everything.  Seacrest is currently the host of American Idol, the daily host of E! News Live, and a morning radio host in Los Angeles.  He's also been hosting a number of specials recently, including New Year's Rockin' Eve, the Emmys, the SAG Awards and, in two weeks, Ryan will preside over the biggest event of them all: Super Bowl XLII.  Seacrest discussed the FOX Super Bowl pre-game show this morning, which he will be hosting for FOX.  FOX is going with a new format this year for the pre-game show – Seacrest will host a live red carpet and interview celebrities as they head into the game.  It's an experiment, and Seacrest discussed the possible perils of combining football and a red carpet.  Of course, he also managed to include some American Idol tidbits in the conference call, including Paula Abdul's scheduled pre-game performance.

FOX and Seacrest are going to cover the Super Bowl like any major event, like an awards show. 

Ryan was asked about what he thinks about Paula Abdul performing at the Super Bowl.  Paula has also choreographed some dance moves for Randy Jackson.

Ryan says he's able to juggle all these things at once because he's not really given a script and he likes doing things off the cuff.  He says it's the only thing he's comfortable doing.

As always, the Super Bowl is going to be the biggest U.S. television event of the year, and they're preparing for it as such.

Randy and Paula's Super Bowl performance idea came in very late in the game, to be scheduled for the pre-game or halftime.  It's actually going to be a taped, music video type of thing.  Paula will not be performing live. 

Seacrest insists that he is a football fan and has been paying attention to the NFL this year.  He talked about how he grew up playing football through high school.

The question of whether this whole red carpet deal will be interesting for a normal sports fan was breached.  They say that an average sports is interested in other things and celebrities may be one of them. 

Seacrest is happy to announce that Simon Cowell will not be involved in the program.  He wants to shove it in Simon's face the next day when the numbers come back.

The red carpet will only be one part of the pre-game show, and they promise it won't be overwhelming. 

There will be no celebrities or any guests in the commentary box during the game.

Seacrest was curious when approached about being involved in the Super Bowl pre-game show.  He says that he said yes very, very soon after the idea was proposed.

Seacrest will not be involved in the halftime show. 

Seacrest discusses the slippage of the ratings for American Idol.  He thinks that, when you look at the series historically throughout the seasons, the ratings are still pretty darn good.  After all, it still is the most popular show in America. 

Seacrest discusses the risk of overexposing himself.  He says that he does think about it all the time, but he believes that he's staying within the same realm of TV, in the world of live TV. He doesn't think he'll burn out any time soon.


-Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image Courtesy of FOX)