I admit, I found it strange, too, to hear that voiceover. Admittedly, I haven't heard the runner-up money mentioned by Alex in quite a while, so maybe this was a way to just regularly remind the people at home that the runners-up do get something. If anything, I'll bet they've gotten a lot of viewer questions since it HASN'T been said for so long.
As far as the loser's podiums being blanked. If you looked back at them during the credits when they're in view, that's something they've always done, too. If it's a question that they do it sooner now before we get to the credits, then, eh, again, probably stemmed from the same question as above. (And Chad, yeah, I'm sure some of the questions came from the older audience who remember the Fleming days.)
*shrug* Off guard, but not turned off. Bring on the answers.