A busy new year on TV

Entertaining the masses on New Year’s Eve used to be easy for TV people.

They taped a music party in advance, pretending it was on Dec. 31. Then they stationed someone at Times Square.

It was slick and simple – until the competition began. Now three networks each will have stars performing live on New Year’s Eve:

“Fox has its current “American Idol” champion and runner-up, Jordin Sparks and Blake Lewis, plus Lifehouse.

“ABC has a previous “Idol” champ, Carrie Underwood.

“She may be the most successful Idol we’ve had,” says “Idol” host Ryan Seacrest, who co-hosts the New Year’s Eve bash.

The network also has two young acts, Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers.

“NBC has Alicia Keys and Lenny Kravitz.

“They’re two of the most acclaimed artists … especially Alicia right now, with her latest album going to No. 1,” says host Carson Daly.

They’ll work live, alongside some recorded music.

Fox plans to premiere concert performances from the upcoming DVDs from Mariah Carey and Fall Out Boy.

ABC has Fergie hosting its taped party, which includes Natasha Bedingfield, Sean Kingston, OneRepublic, Akon, Plain White T’s, Will.i.am (of Black Eyed Peas) and country’s Taylor Swift.

Nothing quite matches the commotion of a New Year’s Eve in New York, Daly says.

“To be in a sea of a half-million people and to be live on television … I look forward to it every year,” he says.

It all looks especially fierce to a newcomer.

“I’d never seen the ball drop before,” says Cat Deeley (“So You Think You Can Dance”), who returns as Fox host following her debut last year.

“To see people scream and sing Frank Sinatra songs with the confetti coming down, it’s amazing.”

Deeley grew up in England, and never caught the big New Year’s Eve celebrations in London.

“One year, I was in South Africa,” she recalls. “We were around lions and elephants and rhinos during the day and at night it was New Year’s Eve.”

The former model got used to the chaos of live TV when she began co-hosting a British show.

“It was three hours, live,” says Deeley, 31. “This is what I’ve always done.”

Teen shows seem to be ideal training for the New Year’s Eve gig.

“There are no louder sounds than the sounds of 5,000 screaming 16-year-olds,” says Daly, who has hosted a New Year’s Eve show – on MTV or NBC – for nine of the past 10 years.

Dick Clark created the first big teen show (“American Bandstand”) and the first modern New Year’s Eve show.

He missed a year after his stroke in 2004; since then, he’s co-hosted with Seacrest.

On Monday, at age 78, Clark will be back at his spot above New York’s Times Square.

“I always follow Dick’s lead,” says Seacrest. “He built this franchise.”