Ryan Seacrest has done pretty well guest co-hosting the syndicated “Live” with Kelly Ripa. And soon we’ll see how the duo performs on a permanent basis.
In five episodes as a fill-in, the “American Idol” alum has averaged a 2.56 Nielsen TV rating. That’s good enough to rank him 20th among the many (67, to be exact) whom “Live With Kelly” tried out over the past 12 months.
Below are a few folks who have done even better than the guy who’d like to forget his time on Fox’s “Knock Knock Live.”
Rank: 19
Co-Host: Anderson Cooper
No. of Episodes: 11
Average Rating: 2.564
Rank: 17
Co-Host: Mark Consuelos
No. of Episodes: 10
Average Rating: 2.58
Rank: 9
Co-Host: Jussie Smollett
No. of Episodes: 4
Average Rating: 2.725
In Seacrest’s case, it certainly didn’t hurt that the popular radio personality only guest co-hosted the show five times and hasn’t appeared since February. (He did three of his episodes in November, and the other one last June.) Had he stopped by more often and more recently, Seacrest may have fallen victim to organically declining interest levels, and thus, fewer eyeballs. You’ll see what we mean in the gallery, where the top dogs only showed up once or twice — and generally not very long after Michael Strahan quit.
Click here to see how every single guest co-hosted episode of “Live With Kelly” has done since Jimmy Kimmel kicked off the run almost 12 full months ago. And go here to see the Nielsen averages for each individual member of the year-long tryout.
Scroll through our gallery below to see every single man and woman who had higher Nielsen averages guest co-hosting “Live With Kelly” than Seacrest did.