Ryan Seacrest joins Kelly Ripa on 'Live'

He's been a fixture on the red carpet during big Hollywood awards ceremonies. Now get ready for Ryan Seacrest to be a fixture on the morning-show circuit as Kelly Ripa's new partner.

Nearly a year after Michael Strahan left his seat next to Ripa on her weekday talk show, she announced that former American Idol host Seacrest is her new co-host. And so Live With Kelly has become Live With Kelly and Ryan.

The popular morning show with Ripa is distributed by Disney | ABC Home Entertainment and TV Distribution. It is produced by WABC-TV in New York and competes in many markets against the third hour of NBC's Today. Seacrest, whose industry credits includes both television and radio gigs as well as producing reality TV series, is not new to ABC as he is host of the network's annual broadcast of Dick Clark's Rockin Eve on New Year's Eve.

CNN reported the Seacrest news ahead of Monday's show. It was confirmed early during Live's broadcast. The two appeared together and he told her, "So happy. So excited."

But she's suffered without a permanent co-host: Ratings for Live! are down 18%, to an average of 3.2 million viewers, a steeper decline than any other syndicated talk show.

Ripa posted a video to Twitter on Sunday afternoon in which she took a sip from a Live with Kelly mug that also included a question mark. She said in the video, "Tune in tomorrow. Trust me."

The show said it was "growing to two" on Twitter. Another post had "announce co-host" on Ripa's "to do" list.

News of Strahan's exit for Good Morning America last May led Ripa to skip the show for two days in protest of the way the situation was handled.

Numerous celebrities have filled in as co-hosts with Ripa over the past year, including Jerry O'Connell, Fred Savage and Andy Cohen.

Contributing: Erin Jensen and the Associated Press