AGreed. Sure, the British Pop Idol (now X Factor) also has its Ryan (he's about the same size and looks too). What I meant was, we have an extra presenter who stands out on the plaza and does a piece after the ads, or between "themes" (e.g. the bit where they show the contestants all mangling a particular song, one after the other).

BTW I was able to see what Ryan does for myself, esp. after 2 seasons! :-)

>That's Ryan Seacrest you mean and IMO he is an essential ingredient of the show. He is sort of the cheerleader, the nurturer. He talks to contestants as they go into the audition room and then again when they come out. I find him a welcome antidote to the sometimes corrosive judges. The nice guy, the shoulder to cry on. He even has the stones to tell Simon when to piss off. IMO he is perfect in his role. Don't you think the show producers had a casting call for that role as well?
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>>This show had FAR TOO MUCH emphasis on following the "personalities" around and letting them talk to camera, rather than showing many auditions. Also, we have the totally superfluous Brit girl, Cat Daly (who also does that equiv. dancing prog) doing a piece to camera, as well as your bloke, the one who hangs around outside the audition door.
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>>>I've been busy at nite the last week, so I didn't watch it at all last week. The focus on the last 2 nites appears to be on the people who can sing though. I didn't hear my coworkers talk about any wackos last week.
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>>>>I caught the NY auditions of AI on Sunday. Man were there some wackos! That gay guy who obviously HATES us limeys and has no talent whatsoever other than self promotion (the people who say he's a superstar are his friends, family and his 2 analysts). Then that girl with the cowboy hat, who couldn't sing. She had the sweetest smile - her whole face lighting up - and one thought of her as being dippy, self-effacing and a lot of fun. Then she got rejected and turned into raving mad, salivating, raging monster!
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>>>>Ai Caramba!
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>>>>>Last nite on American Idol, there was a guy they were making fun of, right from the get go. Totally bizarre type of fellow. And low and behold, his day job, software engineer.
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>>>>>He had a rather strange look on his face pretty much all the time. And talked rather bizarrely too. He said he wanted to try out for the show because whenever he was in a group of people singing, he would end up taking the lead.
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>>>>>Which goes to show the kind of people he hangs out with. From the first note when he started singing the judges were cringing. He was sooooo awful. Almost comically bad.
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>>>>>Bud I think he did bare a striking resemblence to Terry.