"There's less pressure this year!" cheers Ryan Seacrest in our podcast chat when we discuss his return as host of the Emmycast, this time joined by his four rival nominees for the new award for reality TV host: Tom Bergeron ("Dancing With the Stars"), Heidi Klum ("Project Runway"), Howie Mandel ("Deal or No Deal) and Jeff Probst ("Survivor"). "We'll probably be able to have a little bit more fun because there are four other people to take this ride with me and we can all blame each other for any failure."

Ryan Seacrest jokes around a lot during our chat because he's having a wild day. We gabbed yesterday just hours after that jaw-dropping announcement — one day before the start of "American Idol" auditions — that Kara DioGuardi has been added as a judge. (CLICK HERE to download the MP3 file and listen to the full podcast chat.) NOTE: You may need to hold down your computer's control key while clicking.

Ryan Seacrest admits that the news took him by surprise, but he's excited because her addition "will make the show fresh again," he says, adding this warning: "She's a tough New Yorker with a lot of candor." Aha! Competition for Simon Cowell?

Back in June when The Envelope interviewed Ryan about the new Emmy Award for reality TV host he joshed a bit there too: "Part of the beauty and satisfaction of this new award is the fact that Simon can't win it. It makes me happy."  (Read the full interview HERE.)

OK, so I ask Ryan: now that reality TV hosts have their own Emmy race, should judges have their own category too? "Yes!" he roars. "The judges on all of these shows are very important characters and frankly are lead on many of them. Absolutely, they should be acknowledged for what they do and I think that perhaps we'll see that happen . . . . But to go back to my statement in The Envelope issue, it does make me feel good, just between Simon and I, that I don't have to deal with the possibility of him winning one individually and taking all of the credit."

Yikes! These guys love to jab each other, don't they? (Answer: Yes, and hallelujah.)

Ryan also likes tweaking his fellow Emmy cohosts. While discussing their preparation for the Emmycast, he notes that they took a group photo the other day. "I, for the record, am not the shortest host," he announces proudly. "That would be Probst, (although) he might've walked in with his open-toed sandals."

Not all of the nominees in that category measure up in another respect. Four of them host reality TV shows, while one emcees a game show: Howie Mandel. "Survivor" producer Mark Burnett recently said he doesn't think that grouping is fair (CLICK HERE). Does Ryan agree?

"You might see that category broken off into subcategories" in the future, Ryan notes. "What we do is similar in some ways, but it's very different. The mechanics of what Howie's doing running a game show and what I'm doing with music competition and what Jeff's doing in the bush in the middle of insert-continent-here it's all different, but I'm personally happy that we're at least grouped into the category."

Unflappable Ryan doesn't even seem too upset over what's happened to "American Idol" in that other related category — for reality/competition program — in years past. It's lost over and over to undefeated "Amazing Race," which has zoomed ahead five times.

Describing the Emmy ceremony moment when that envelope gets opened every year, Ryan says, "We used to get excited when you hear 'Am-' — 'American Idol' maybe? But it's 'Am-azing Race.' So I think we've conditioned ourselves to pretty much stay in our seats and watch the Bruckheimer army go up and accept, but they deserve to be acknowledged and rewarded for the success of that show. It's just all very different."