The Hour

The Hour
George Stroumboulopoulos of The Hour (photo credit, Dustin Rabin, 2008)
Genre	Talk show
Presented by	George Stroumboulopoulos
Opening theme	"The Good In Everyone" by Sloan
Country of origin	Canada
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	Currently in its 5th season
Production
Executive producer(s)	Jennifer Dettman / Co-executive Producer- George Stroumboulopoulos
Broadcast
Original channel	CBC Newsworld (2005-2009) CBC Television (2006-present)
Picture format	480i (SDTV), 720p (HDTV)
Original airing	January 17, 2005---
External links
Official website

The Hour is an award-winning Canadian television talk show broadcast on CBC Television. It first aired on January 17, 2005. The Hour is currently initially broadcast on CBC Television at 11:05 p.m. local time (11:35 p.m. in Newfoundland). The program is hosted by George Stroumboulopoulos.

Until 2009, The Hour was seen Monday to Friday at 8:00 p.m. ET on CBC Newsworld; the program was discontinued on that channel in October 2009, when CBC Newsworld was revamped as the CBC News Network.

Currently in its fifth season, The Hour is a hybrid of news and celebrity. It features in depth conversations and dynamic production.

The Hour tapes at the Canadian Broadcasting Centre in Toronto, Monday to Thursday from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m in front of a live studio audience.

The Hour's opening theme song is "The Good In Everyone" by Canadian rock band Sloan. It replaced the formerly used track, "Use It" from The New Pornographers at the start of the 2008 broadcast season.

Format

Current show segments on The Hour include:

• Mile a Minute quickly touches on current events around the world, with video or images accompanied by Stroumboulopoulos' commentary.
• The News sharp and satiric look at the world of entertainment.
• The List is a primarily satirical Top 5 list concerning a current event or ties into a current news story.
• Best Story Ever is a segment where a celebrity briefly relates one of their best personal stories directly to the camera.

On some programs, Stroumboulopoulos reads aloud viewer correspondence.

Past show segments have included:

• Canada is similar to Mile a Minute, but limited to current events in Canada. This segment aired only during Season One and Two.
• Time Capsule shows CBC footage from past events that relate to current events or the date, sometimes it is both video and audio, at other times George will comment on the video footage.
• The Newsstand is a one-on-one interview between Stroumboulopoulos and a guest, taking place at a newsstand, discussing issues that appear on various magazine covers.

The final segment of the show was called "The Closer", a monologue by Stroumboulopoulos about a particular current event. Since January 2007 this segment has been replaced by "The List". On some programs, the show ends immediately after the final guest, without "The Closer" or "The List".

Guests

Some of the current season's guests have included: Eckhart Tolle, Chris Jericho, Tom Cruise, Bill Maher, Sarah Palin, James Cameron, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Marlee Matlin, Tim Robbins, Spike Lee, Ricky Gervais, Tony Bennett, Greg Kinnear, John Legend, David Byrne, former President of the United States Jimmy Carter, Larry King, LeBron James, Henry Rollins, Evangeline Lilly, former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, Alanis Morissette, Malcolm Gladwell, Richard Branson, Howard Zinn, Kings of Leon, Sean Avery, former Canadian Prime Ministers Paul Martin and Brian Mulroney, P!nk, Smashing Pumpkins, David Suzuki, Mike Holmes, Douglas Coupland, Naomi Klein, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Tammet, David Thewlis, Larry Charles, Dana White, Tony Robbins, Gordon Ramsay, Dave Salmoni and Adrien Brody.

George conducted the last public interview granted by journalist and social activist June Callwood before her death. In 2007, The Hour ran a Christmas Special featuring musical performances on set. On June 6, 2008, the show featured an hour-long special with British band Coldplay, on December 9 an hour-long special with actor Tom Cruise and on December 31, 2008 ran a New Year's Eve Special featuring an interview with former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Timeslot history

First and Second Seasons (2005-2006)

Third, Fourth and Fifth Seasons (October 2006-2009)

Current Schedule (as of October 2009)

• In addition, CBET in Windsor, Ontario has an additional showing of The Hour at 5 p.m. ET, in lieu of a local newscast at that hour.

• The Friday shows are usually the best guest interviews repackaged into one show.

Taping locations

The Hour tapes at the Canadian Broadcasting Centre in Toronto, Monday to Thursday from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m in front of a live studio audience.^{[citation needed]}

The show has gone on location to Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and St. John's, and has twice broadcast from London, U.K..^{[citation needed]}

One move came out of an interview with enterprising trader Kyle MacDonald who said the only limitation to his activities would be that he would not make any trade with the citizenry of a small village called Yahk, British Columbia. When the citizens protested the exclusion by writing letters to the show, the trader accused Stroumboulopoulos of hypnotizing him into making that statement and he would only go to that town if the show went there first. On February 9, 2006, the producers broadcast an episode from that village.^{[citation needed]}

Awards

The Hour has won six Gemini Awards:

• 2006 - Viewer's Choice Award
• 2006 - Best Host
• 2007 - Best Talk Series
• 2007 - Best Host
• 2007 - Best Production/Design (Callum MacLachlan for The Hour)
• 2008 - Best Host

External links

• The Hour (Official site)
• TheHour's channel at YouTube (requires Adobe Flash)
• The Hour at the Internet Movie Database
• The Hour at TV.com

Related Video

• Recap of Season One, including highlights of clips in the Video Archive