George Stroumboulopoulos

George Mark Paul Stroumboulopoulos (born August 16, 1972 in Malton, Ontario) is a Canadian television and radio personality, known for his presence on MuchMusic, Canada's primary music television broadcaster, and as the host of The Hour, a late-night talk show about the world's current events.

Family

He was born in Malton, Ontario to a Greek father from Egypt and a Ukrainian mother. He was raised primarily by his mother, and a close-knit extended family.

Career

Stroumboulopoulos studied radio broadcasting at Humber College. He was a board operator at Toronto sports radio station The Fan 590 when he first emerged as an on-air personality, doing segments with host Jim Richards and Spider Jones. Stroumboulopoulos became a full program host at the Fan in his own right (overnight weekend show entitled Game, with Bob Mackowycz Jr. and Jeff Marek), then a disc jockey at the 102.1 The Edge modern rock radio in Toronto, starting in 1997.

MuchMusic

His move to television as a VJ and entertainment journalist at MuchMusic and CityTV Toronto made him a national celebrity. (A memorable 25-minute interview with U2's Bono ended with Bono stating “George, I am a fan.”.

Greatest Canadian

In 2004, he was featured on CBC television's The Greatest Canadian series as the advocate for Tommy Douglas. His case proved persuasive; Douglas (whose profile was shown first) started the contest in first place and remained there.

The Hour

In December 2004, Stroumboulopoulos left MuchMusic to host a new live prime time news program on CBC Newsworld: The Hour. He co-hosted a Sunday night talk radio show, The Strombo Show on CFRB in Toronto and CJAD in Montreal. The show moved to the Corus network and the format changed to one of mainly music. The Strombo Show now broadcasts from 102.1 The Edge's Toronto studio and on other radio stations in the Corus Entertainment network, including CFOX-FM in Vancouver, CJKR-FM in Winnipeg, CFPL-FM in London and CJXY-FM in Hamilton. In July 2006, Stroumboulopoulos signed on to host the American version of The One: Making a Music Star, aired on ABC and CBC . However, due to abysmal ratings, the show was cancelled after just two weeks. Stroumboulopoulos stated that he was only taking on the show as a "summer job", and did not plan to stop hosting The Hour. He has also stated that he will not host a proposed Canadian version of that show if it comes to fruition.

Stroumboulopoulos was nominated for the 2007 Gemini Viewers Choice Award. He ended up losing the award to Marilyn Denis, the host of Cityline. Stroumboulopoulos did however win the Gemini for Best Host or Interviewer in a General/Human Interest or Talk Program or Series.. He was awarded an honorary degree—Doctor of Laws, honoris causa—from the University of Calgary on November 13, 2007.

Stroumboulopoulos has also been involved with numerous charitable initiatives, such as hosting the 'HipHop4Africa' Mandela Children's Fund Canada and CapAids February 2006 Toronto benefit which featured Canadian musicians Melanie Durrant, Imaan Faith, and Gurpreet Chana among others. Deejay Ra, who interviewed Stroumboulopoulos for the event's DVD, also did a live reading at the sold-out event as part of his 'Hip-Hop Literacy' program, promoting Mandela and Tupac books to the students in attendance.

References

External links

Related video

Video interview with Peter Mansbridge from 2003. (No longer linked-to in the Video Archive, but still accessible.)
Recap of The Hour: Season One, including highlights of clips in the shows video archive
Recap of The Hour: Season Two, features highlights from the second season of the show.