LOS ANGELES (TNA) – The last year has been a big learning experience for Spike Feresten.

He’s the host of “Talk Show with Spike Feresten,” which comes back for its second season on FOX starting Saturday, Sept. 15 at midnight.

Spike

Feresten has a quite a pedigree behind the scenes, including stints as a writer on “Saturday Night Live,” “Late Night With David Letterman,” and “Seinfeld,” where he wrote the now-famous “Soup Nazi” episode.

Still, he says all that experience didn’t prepare him for the rigors of hosting a show.

“I had this belief that if you watched a lot of TV, you can just do it,” Feresten said.

Turned out, he was wrong. Feresten says he developed great respect for on-camera personalities after he figured out how hard it was “to keep a show moving.”

He must have done something for FOX to bring him back, right?

Feresten thinks so, and he’s getting hints from executives that they agree.

“There’s a little more money now,” Feresten said. “Plus, we have a tighter staff to make it work. And people are more aware of the show, so now we can get guests like Ryan Seacrest.”

That is big for Feresten, who admits another one of his misguided notions before starting “Talk Show” was that it would be easy for him to find guests.

“I learned that not everyone wants to be on TV,” Feresten said.

But the biggest proof that Feresten is making FOX happy is something he has yet to see.

“The network actually shelled out money for billboards, but they’re in the middle of a cornfield on Ogallala, Nebraska,” he said. “But it’s a start.”

He will also be getting another push of sorts on Sunday, when he appears with Seacrest on “The 59th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards” on FOX.

“I’ll be blogging the Emmys live, but I don’t know whether it will be backstage or whether I’ll be in the audience.”

Regardless of where he is, Feresten plans to keep close watch of Seacrest and bug the “American Idol” host for career advice.

“He has every job in television and I have to see how I can steal them,” he said.

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