| George Stroumboulopoulos | |
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George Stroumboulopoulos (photo credit: Mark Dunne, 2010) |
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| Born | George Mark Paul Stroumboulopoulos August 16, 1972 Malton, Ontario, Canada |
| Other names | Strombo |
George Mark Paul Stroumboulopoulos (pronounced /strɒmbəˈlɒpələs/; born August 16, 1972) is a Canadian television and radio personality, best known as the host of CBC Television's George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight (formerly The Hour; a talk show about the world's current events) and being a VJ for Canadian music television channel MuchMusic. Stroumboulopoulos studied Radio Broadcasting at Toronto's Humber College.
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He was born in Malton, Ontario, Canada, to a Greek father from Egypt and a Ukrainian mother.[1] He was raised in Toronto primarily by his mother, and a close-knit extended family.[2]
In the second quarter of 1993, Stroumboulopoulos worked for a rock radio station in Kelowna, B.C., for a few months before getting a job offer at the Toronto radio station Fan 590 AM, working in talk radio for about four years before moving to MuchMusic.[3]
From 2000–2004, Stroumboulopoulos worked at MuchMusic as producer and host of The Punk Show, then host of The NewMusic, MuchLOUD and MuchNews.[4][5]
Prior to joining The Hour Stroumboulopoulos was featured on CBC television's The Greatest Canadian series as the advocate for Tommy Douglas. More than 1.2 million votes were cast over six weeks, as each of 10 advocates made their case for the Top 10 nominees. Stroumboulopoulos made a personal and passionate case for Tommy Douglas, Canada's "father of medicare"; Tommy Douglas was later named The Greatest Canadian.
Stroumboulopoulos has hosted a long-running Sunday night talk radio show, The Strombo Show. Originally aired as a talk show on CFRB in Toronto and CJAD in Montreal, the show moved to the Corus network in November 2007 and the format changed to one of mainly music. The Strombo Show broadcast from 102.1 The Edge's Toronto studio and on other radio stations in the Corus Entertainment network, including CFOX-FM in Vancouver, Power 97 in Winnipeg, FM96 in London and Y108 in Hamilton.
The show moved to CBC Radio 2 on November 8, 2009.
On January 17, 2005, the first episode of The Hour went to air. Currently in its seventh season, The Hour is a hybrid of news and celebrity and covers everything from politics, pop culture, the environment, human rights, entertainment, sports and more. Airing nationally at 11:00 pm on CBC, The Hour is Canada's only late-night talk show. It has won eight Gemini Awards. Stroumboulopoulos and The Hour have hosted a range of guests from world leaders to celebrities and politicians.[6]
For the 7th season of the talk show, CBC announced that beginning September 20, 2010, the show was being renamed and shortened into a daily half-hour show called George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight; the revised program is broadcast weeknights at 11:05 pm local time, 11:30 pm in Newfoundland.[7]
In July 2006, George Stroumboulopoulos hosted an American reality television talent show, The One: Making a Music Star that aired on ABC in the United States, and CBC Television in Canada. It was advertised as a similar show to American Idol and Rock Star but with the twist that contestants would "live together in a fully functioning music academy", with their actions documented similar to the Big Brother format.
Reportedly the most expensive summer series in the history of the ABC network,[8] its first episode, on July 18, 2006, scored a low audience of 3.08 million viewers.[9] Subsequent episodes had even fewer viewers. The series was cancelled after just two weeks (four episodes) with the final results undecided on July 27, 2006, with no plans for any further episodes. Stroumboulopoulos returned to The Hour after the failure of the reality television show The One.
George Stroumboulopoulos and The Hour sponsored the "One Million Acts of Green" Internet Website[10] challenge, calling on Canadians to register environmental acts they've done. The campaign registered over 1.6 million acts on the website. Stroumboulopoulos and his family[11] have been devoted to this cause also supported by Dr. David Suzuki.
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. He has traveled to the Arctic for a special on literacy, youth culture and the loss of Inuit identity. He has been to Sudan with War Child Canada, and Zambia for a World AIDS Day special documentary. He also supports Make Poverty History. He joined other prominent Canadians in sharing views on global issues in the March 2010 issue of Upstream Journal magazine.
He was co-host of Canada for Haiti television with Cheryl Hickey and Ben Mulroney to help the humanitarian crisis in Haiti after a devastating earthquake.
Stroumboulopoulos became the first Canadian Ambassador Against Hunger for the United Nations World Food Programme in March 2011. Since then his network has fed more than 3,000 hungry kids through the WeFeedback campaign and donated over 7 million grains of rice through Freerice.com.
He also presented at Vancouver's EPIC Expo in May 2011 where he showed support for Fair Trade and the work of the non-profit organization, Fair Trade Vancouver.
George showed up to the Toronto Occupation of downtown Toronto to show his support for the movement.
The CBC and Stroumbuolopuolos came under criticism for hosting an apparently extravagant party during the Toronto International Film Festival, at the Hazelton hotel in Toronto.[12] The CBC, which is funded by the Canadian government, was particularly criticized for the hefty expenditure for the event.[13]