It's not that he's multi-talented; he's anti-talented, not a performer but a professional "personality," the latest variation on a type as old as broadcasting: the guy who stands there and introduces the acts. He's a low-key cheerleader who keeps the show moving and, with the judges as natural foils, allies himself with the audience and the contestants, never threatening to upstage the performers, even if he could.For all that, he stops mercifully short of outright sycophancy, a la Ed McMahon. Never a "You are correct, sir," even to Jackson. Part of the Seacrest shtick is coming across as a little too cool for his role, yet a good enough sport to play along. Seacrest isn't lovable, nor foolish enough to try to be. He's just aiming for tolerable -- bull's-eye.
Or as Allison Glock wrote about Seacrest back in May 2004: "A successful Personality attracts a large audience without challenging them. He lulls and coddles and strives not to alienate. He presents himself as likable, nonthreatening and, most important, reachable -- never too handsome or too happening or too sharp. Theirs is not a world of superlatives but of glossy averageness, the 5-foot-9 man, the pleated khaki, the Dave Matthews Band. A successful Personality never, not for a second, worries about being cool.... Seacrest explains: People don't react to me with awe, like a movie star. It's 'What's up, Ryan?' Like I'm their friend. And I want that. I want to be the world's friend."
There is a reason why Ryan Seacrest succeeds in a role at which Billy Bush annoys and from which Carson Daly has more-or-less disappeared, and I don't believe it's anything that can ever be taught.
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