Live With Kelly and Ryan Review – Did they make the right choice for new co-host?

One of my favorite shows to watch is Live with Kelly, or as it has been known recently, Live with Kelly and Michael, and Live with Regis and Kelly. I try to catch this show whenever I can in the morning as it is always a delight to see Kelly and the different guests each week.

Over the past few months, Kelly was the only permanent host and each day they had a different co-host join her on the show. Usually they were other celebrities and well known entertainers. I enjoyed this rotating format as it made the show a little more interesting knowing there would be different people featured each week.

Finally after months without a permanent co-host, they announced Ryan Seacrest as the new official co-host who would be joining Kelly. The announcement was met with mixed reviews based on what I saw from the fan reactions online. I was a surprised by the choice considering they had a lot of great candidates to choose from and several that were clearly fan favorites.

Personally I would have liked to see one of the others chosen as the new permanent co-host. My top pick would have been Fred Savage. He was very likable on the show and had a great energy and chemistry with Kelly. I also think a great choice would have been Richard Curtis who was the teacher who made it on as a co-host through one of their promotions. He did such a great job, they asked him back several more times.

Another good pick would have been Scott Wolf. He also had great chemistry with Kelly and really fit the morning talk show role well in terms wholesomeness and sense of humor. I even would have liked to see her husband Mark Consuelos be the co-host, but I know that could be difficult because it would mean the two would be spending a lot of time together each week.

Nevertheless, Ryan Seacrest was chosen as the new co-host. Personally I feel kind of indifferent about this choice. He has a lot of experience in similar roles from his days on American Idol and from being on the radio. I think the producers of the show figured he would be a safe choice to fill the role of co-host. For me, he was definitely not my first choice, but I think he will do ok.

So far they have had 2 weeks with the new format of Live with Kelly and Ryan. Overall I think Ryan is doing ok. Honestly, I don't think the chemistry between them is quite right and I don't think a morning show like this is the best fit for Ryan. I will still tune in for Kelly because as I like to think, she is a national treasure. For now, Ryan will have to do as co-host. I would be interested to see if there is any trend in the ratings either up of down due to this change.

What do you think of this choice to make Ryan Seacrest the new co-host of Live? Feel free to leave comments below.

Update: It has been a couple months and I still feel that they should have picked someone else to be co-host. This was very apparent the past 2 weeks where the first week Ryan was hosting with guest co-hosts and the next week Kelly was hosting with guest co-hosts. The week where it was just Ryan, I found myself thinking, "Why am I even watching this?" Then the next week when Kelly came back and had different co-hosts, it was like energy and excitement had been restored to the show. I will still tune in here and there, but I hope some changes are on the way to bring the show back to how it was.

Update: 5-21-18 
It's been a little over a year since Ryan stepped in as permanent co-host and overall I think there has been improvement since when he first joined. I think he has settled into the role and the chemistry between he and Kelly has gotten better. I still like when they have guest hosts like when Mark Consuelos joins Kelly at the desk, but overall I think Ryan does a fine job now as the co-host.