Ryan Seacrest is making bank and building an empire

[Miguel]

Seacrest Assembles TV Empire

Three months ago, when the news, sports and entertainment worlds converged on Indianapolis for the Super Bowl, Ryan Seacrest was at home in Hollywood — and feeling uncharacteristically jealous.

He sent an e-mail to Steve Burke, the chief executive of NBCUniversal, whose NBC network was broadcasting the football game. “I’m going nuts not being there,” Mr. Seacrest wrote.

The next time NBC shows a Super Bowl, in 2015, it’s likely that Mr. Seacrest will be there.

On Friday he signed a new contract with NBCUniversal that will have him contribute to the “Today” show, Olympics coverage, election coverage and other special events. But not exclusively. He will remain at Fox Broadcasting, hosting “American Idol”; at Clear Channel, hosting radio shows; and, most likely, at ABC, hosting the New Year’s Eve special that Dick Clark started 40 years ago.

Already Mr. Seacrest makes well more than $50 million a year from his current jobs, but his busy days are increasingly about businesses behind the scenes, as he tries to do what Mr. Clark did decades ago: build an entertainment empire.

...The exact shape his holding company, Ryan Seacrest Media, will eventually take is unclear to many in the media industry and may even be unclear to Mr. Seacrest, 37, who declined an interview request for this article last week. But he appears to be placing several important bets — a few on broadcasting, a couple on cable, a couple on the Web.

“He wants to build a major worldwide lifestyle brand with TV production as just one part of that empire,” said Richard J. Bressler, a managing director of the private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners. That firm, and Bain Capital, which together control Clear Channel, announced last winter a $300 million commitment to work together on investments and acquisitions.

“Ryan’s a rare breed: a great creative talent but also a very good business person,” said Bob Pittman, the chief executive of Clear Channel.

Mr. Seacrest, who started hosting radio shows as a teenager, became nationally known a decade ago when he was named the host of “Idol,” which became the biggest reality show on television. With “Idol” as his foundation, he started making more deals: radio shows for Clear Channel, newscasts for E! and a spot next to Mr. Clark on “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.” He was made a producer as well as a host of each, giving him more financial and editorial control.

Then his company started making its own shows. The misses, like “Momma’s Boys” on NBC, have been mostly forgotten, but the hits, like “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” on E!, have persuaded channels like Bravo and CMT to buy its shows. On Monday E! announced it had ordered another, a reality show starring Kevin Jonas, of the Jonas Brothers, and his wife, Danielle Deleasa.

In this way Mr. Seacrest may be modeling himself on Mr. Clark, who once said he made money from his “American Bandstand” “horizontally, vertically, every which way you can think of.”

...Because live events are loved by television executives for their social media appeal — they are less likely to be watched with DVRs than scripted shows — Mr. Seacrest’s hosting skills are especially valued right now.

“What this NBC deal gives him is diversification,” said Gigi L. Johnson, who teaches courses on digital media and media disruption at the University of California, Los Angeles, and other universities. “It helps him move from an entertainment brand to a news, politics, sports, and prime-time brand. Bluntly, it could reduce his ‘fluff factor.’ ”

...As ubiquitous as he is, Mr. Seacrest risks a backlash from the audience — one that is perceptible at times on the Web, where jokes about his many roles sometimes double as criticism.

But Martin Kaplan, director of the Norman Lear Center for the study of entertainment, media and society at the University of Southern California, asserted that “his ubiquity isn’t threatening because he’s devoid of the latent-monster vibe.”

...“The usual five-act celebrity narrative is: success; too big for his britches; had a great fall; humility recaptured; the comeback kid,” Mr. Kaplan said. “But he’s frozen in the amber of Act I.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/arts/t...ted=1&_r=1

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"Because live events are loved by television executives for their social media appeal — they are less likely to be watched with DVRs than scripted shows — Mr. Seacrest’s hosting skills are especially valued right now."

^^ Interesting observation. The timing worked out well for him.