How difficult was it to come to the final decision and what factors did you consider?

Susie: It was really hard. It was amazing to me, I don’t know if you guys did the chat last night but we did a chat and it was amazing to me how evenly Aarti was still the fan favorite, but I think it was pretty split a third, a third, a third - Herb, Tom and Aarti; and if you could imagine feeling as torn as the audience was we were as well.

You know what it is though, as much as I love Tom and think he is a fabulous talent such natural easy going guy, from a business perspective I did struggle a little bit with what we would do together. Big stuff is a great concept to get people to tune in, but I don’t know what businesses we’re going into from there just because I don’t think the concept was as jelled. And that kind of suits Tom. Tom is kind of a figure-it-out kind of guy, figure-it-out on the fly kind of guy. But, it’s a little; next star knowing that I didn’t really have a vision for him. Herb, was you know, I could just see his brand and I could see the vision with him right into the future. He’s just so darn inconsistent you know, he’s just like an un-polished gem. I think Herb just needed longer because Herb is so natural, so gorgeous on camera, has such a great background, has such a commitment to health and fitness, he walks the walk, he’s Latino he’s healthy, he’s a dad - I mean I could just go on and on. He’s such a diversified individual that I think could make for a great talent we just need more time with him.

And Aarti obviously had the greatest amount of good most consistently so that’s exactly the line of thinking that went through. You guys saw it; we talked openly and honestly about it while it was hard I think Aarti etched them out.

It was mentioned that Tom is getting his own show. Can you talk about that at all?

Susie: I don’t have as much information, I know what show it is and what topic it is, Is that all in the release? You know what; we think he’s a great talent and that he has kind of the gift of gab and the ability to relate to people as an everyday guy. I mean Guy Fieri, he’s a great example of someone that makes you feel so comfortable and so relaxed but helps some folks shine. By showcasing what these various people do in the food space. We’re hoping that Tom sort of has the ability to bring the ‘wow’ to all these outrageous foods but at the same time be a great person to hang out with, because we think he has great food chops as well as to really have a nice laid back personality. He’s very smart and he’s really fun, so we think that might be a winning combination in this new show that we’ve got going in prime.

The camera challenge and the focus groups were big differences in this season, what other changes might we see to Next Food Network Star?

Susie: Oh, you know I wish I could say. I mean I think it will be, We will always look to step it up, we will always look to make it sexier, and bring in what we think are more interesting challenges but the truth is we’re in planning mode. So, I don’t have any, I don’t know if I could tell you anyway, but I definitely don’t have sort of a list of what the challenges are going to be. We like to sort of see how things do and see what resonates. Like, is dining on a train with Robert Irvine a highly rated episode that got a lot of buzz? Or do people love the ‘let’s go to Eva Longoria’s restaurant and let’s do something a little sleeker and sexier with a celebrity’? So I think just like all good programmers and marketers we are all just looking to do more of what works while we step out and innovate, but make sure we are not going too far from the kinds of stuff that people love. And obviously bringing in new faces in like Giada but keeping some of those consistencies like Alton and Rachel, I think it’s been a pretty good formula for us. So, hopefully we’re off to our biggest season yet and we continue to raise the bar.

So, we just heard that Tom is getting his own show, would the network consider bringing Herb back on the network in some capacity? And if so, when?

Susie: You know, there’s no conversation about that that I’m aware of to date, but anything is possible. And we have a beautiful new sister network called Cooking Channel, so who knows. I’m a fan of Brad as well so who knows.

It appears last night, that this may have been the toughest decision yet in the finale, would you say that, that is true?

Susie: Um, no. Not for me. I’ve had tougher decisions, but let’s just stay focused on the season. I like a lot of what Aarti has had going on as much as I love Tom and Herb, so it was definitely a decision but it wasn’t the toughest. How about that, it wasn’t the toughest.

Was there any point during this season in a deliberation that you disagreed with someone was eliminated that week?

Susie: No, I think that the toughest deliberation we had was whether or not Aria or Brad should go that one week. Brad had his own version of inconsistencies a little in the food more in the performance. Aria always a ray of light and so charismatic and so good on camera, but the Iron Chef battle she really, really fell down. So I guess that kind of really confirmed our convictions that she was not going to be our next star. I think we were really wrestling with Brad or Aria and what a lot of people probably didn’t see, I don’t know if you saw it, but I was crying hysterically that episode. They cut a lot of it out, thank goodness, it made me look like such an idiot. I was very sad to lose Brad. I don’t know something about him as a human being that is so sweet. Like, if you guys remember Kelsey, I said this about Kelsey and I feel this way about Brad, there is a better place with people like that roaming this earth. Like, they’d make this a better place. You know it’s just so hard to lose Brad because he’s such a good guy. Just everything is right with him. He’s raised right, I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. He’s really raised right, so that was heart breaking for me. And I don’t know, I’ll still say Aarti probably still would have taken it but who knows if Brad had stuck around what he might have been able to do. I don’t know, that was a hard one for me.