The Hour has been renamed George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight.

Strombo announced the name change last week in a tweet to his followers.

The name change is part of a revamp that sees the show cut back to half an hour, a new set (which looks fantastic btw) and a tweaked format.

“We’re never going to change the core values of the show — in a sense the show is going to be the same,” Stroumboulopoulos told CBC News:

On The Hour, we helped work with what Mike Bullard had done previously, helped build late-night television in Canada — to start that conversation that we could have late-night shows in Canada — but we think the next step is to … evolve it.

The show launches on September 20th.

‘Off The Record’ the TSN show with Michael Lansberg, recently redesigned their set. It reminded me of the set of ‘The Hour’ pictured below.

What’s that they say about imitation and flattery?

Wow. Way to rub it in.

In the world of Facebook, you’re only allowed to have 5,000 “friends.” People, like Strombo, who are are a public figure and have lots of Internet-connected fans usually accept every friend request as a means of promotion. (Actually, there are four “I’m the real Stombo” people on Facebook. It’s hard to tell who’s really behind them.)

Better to try fan pages instead.

The Canadian Press reports that The Hour has been getting millions of hits on YouTube since the show started uploading segments last fall. The Hour is also one of the top video podcasts in Canada on iTunes. Strombo says that the show has a wide appeal since it fills a gap in late-night TV; unlike other late-night shows, it isn’t pure comedy.

Viewers as far afield as New Zealand and Australia are also members of the shows’ Facebook group.

No, there isn’t a wedding to announce. Not even a courtship. The CBC’s weather anchor Clare Martin was spotted on the soon-to-be-unveiled Vancouver set wearing a “Ms. Stroumboulopoulos” t-shirt.

Folks at The Hour were so amused, they are now asking people who also own this shirt to post on their blog how they got it.

Here’s a sample from it:

The program drew immediate and heavy criticism for dumbing down the news in order to reach younger viewers, but then George isn’t trying to be a youth-friendly Peter Mansbridge. Nor is he trying to be a pundit, an academic or a politician — or a journalist, for that matter.

George is just some guy who likes his music, sports and politics mixed together in one fast, long conversation. The Hour gives that guy the chance to speak with the newsmakers of the day and interpret the news his own way.

Given the roasting George has received so far, it’s suprising to see that — every so often — he delivers an original kind of television product.

What is a little more difficult to calculate is whether or not it’s news programming or infotainment.

I dunno. I’m kind of tired of the boxes we try to put things into. To me, The Hour is more entertaining that news, but far more journalistically sound than what is traditionally known as “infotainment.”

Is there a middle ground here? “Strombotainment”?

Strombo told InsideCBC.com he’d talked to CTV about some other shows, but Idol wasn’t one of them.

The speculation occured when several bloggers inferred that he’d been offered the position from an interview he did recently.

If you miss some of The Hour now you can watch clips on youtube.com/thehour

Great photo of The Hour’s set, taken by “Oravino” who works for the show.

I’m Davo Nabob in there. Do say hi. (Yes, I’m the avatar in the CBC-logo’ed Superman outfit, pictured to the right.)

If you want to subscribe in iTunes, click this link. (I’m not sure what the raw XML feed URL is.)

Incidentally, I’ll have some news about a possible expansion of CBC Radio podcasts in the coming weeks…

I’m not sure when this launched, exactly, but posting began on Tuesday, and it’s new enough that it isn’t yet part of the show site’s navigation (ahem.) But they’re off to a roaring good start, averaging 7-8 items daily.

On first blush, the blog looks the most… blog-like… of any of the CBC offerings so far. [Say, Tod, where on earth did those CBC blogrolls go?] It features plenty of pictures, plans for the show, behind the scenes stuff, story updates and items that didn’t make it into the show.

According to The Hour associate producer Paul McGrath,

The blog is written by the show’s producers, the writers and George (although not everyone has written posts). The idea was to give access to anyone on the show that wanted it and let them post what they felt like….

In the future people can expect quite a bit more content on the blog, George will be making a few posts, we’ll have more behind the scenes of the show, photos of celebrities and newsmakers that are on The Hour, there’ll be comments from viewers and we’ll get the design up to scratch – it’s a work in progress right now.

Anyhow, it’s a great beginning – interesting content, personality shining through, and a dash of nudity too (now you’ll click.) Just my opinion, but I think this is exactly the sort of thing CBC should be doing – giving content producers a forum to interact more directly with their audience. Check it out!

http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/blog/

(But don’t confuse it with The Hour website, or Strombo’s website or the blog there, or his MySpace or The Stroumboulopouli fan blog. This is a blog by and about The Hour. Got it?)

Watch the way Stroumboulopoulos interacts with his studio audience and his true potential is suddenly apparent. He chats them up as they wait in line, plays a little piano to keep them entertained, answers all their questions before, during, and after the show, and poses for as many photos as they want. There are no barriers.
     Stroumboulopoulos claims he was a painfully shy kid (which has the ring of those stories that born-agains like to tell about how bad they were before they were saved) and honed his people skills working as a movie usher. Whatever the explanation, it’s a real talent. You get the feeling that CBC would dominate the dial if they could only send him on a house-to-house cross-country tour.

One thing I found interesting was details of the deal that lured George over to the Corp: “CBC had been courting Stroumboulopoulos since 2000. [CBC offered] Stroumboulopoulos the 8 p.m. time slot formerly occupied by Avi Lewis’s Counterspin, executive producer status, a say in staffing, and the freedom to create the kind of program he wanted.” Sweet.
     If you haven’t had a chance to check out The Hour’s web site, it’s worth a visit. They’re currently looking for The Best Story Ever.

If you watch the opening of Dragon’s Den tonight at 8:00 p.m., you’ll see a fleet of slick black Cadillacs driving the millionaires to the “den” – the result of a series sponsorship deal with GM’s Cadillac division.

Tomorrow, when Wayne Rostad’s On the Road Again opens its 20th and final season (7:30 p.m.) you may see Wayne meeting average Canadians inside average Canadian Tim Hortons restaurants. This is no casual Peter and Condi rendezvous – it’s the result of another sponsorship deal.

“Wayne is a big fan of Tim Hortons, and we’ve got a great relationship with Tim Hortons, so this is a really natural integration,” says Jamie Michaels, CBC’s director of customer marketing.

Can’t afford a Caddy? Tuesday night’s Intelligence features both good guys and bad guys in a variety of conveniently available Mazdas.

“We have to be very careful not to force-fit product placement,” said CBC customer marketing manager Steven Pitkanen. “Mazda was great enough to give us, I think, five vehicles. They’ll be used by the heroes and the bad guys.”

And if you can’t afford a Mazda, how about a Kia? No coincidence that on The Tournament, the character of Stan Ryckman owned a Kia dealership.

That show’s finished, but you can still get your Kia by winning the Hockey Night in Canada Fantasy Pool presented by KIA MOTORS.

There’s more to come, too. According to Media in Canada, we may see products slipped into The Hour and The Gill Deacon Show.

Sponsors may also be drawn to The Hour, with the popular and hip George Stroumboulopoulos offering up guest interviews and provocative commentary. Now in its third season, the show features sponsorable segments like George’s Top 5 movie lists and contests, but the opps are being lined up with care. “George is a pretty prestigious brand,” said Michaels. “We’re looking for the right advertisers to associate with that. It’s not a show that’s going to be cluttered with sponsors.”

Other opportunities to watch for are the debut of The Gill Deacon Show on Monday, Oct. 30 at 11 a.m. (with repeats daily at 2 p.m.). The talk show is a friendly challenge to think “out of the box” geared to the homemaker, the young mother with a newborn, the work-at-home career woman or the business person on a coffee break. It’s a free-flow of ideas, talk, tips and suggestions that will empower viewers to make choices that enrich their lives in surprising and creative ways – and thusly a potential landmine for tie-ins and ad opps.

[I sure hope they meant "goldmine"…]

So, is product placement a landmine or goldmine?

CBC is always on the lookout for new ways of funding shows, and this is certainly one way to do it. One could argue that a Caddy in the Dragon’s Den opener is no worse than a fuzzed-out SUV grille logo in any other reality TV show. And why not make some cash when talking to people who probably visit Timmies anyhow? At least CBC is being up front about it.

On the other hand… how long before I have to sign off this WordPress© blog composed on Microsoft Word© brought to you by Dell© Computers – Do More. Faster™.?