Yesterday, Jos and I took a field trip down to the CBC to attend a taping of The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos. I have been to tapings of other shows and the audience is pretty much ignored, except when they need you to enthusiastically clap your hands off. At The Hour, things are refreshingly different, George spends much of the time between segments chatting and interacting with the folks in the audience. In fact after the show finished taping, Canada’a boyfriend, stayed on taking questions from the audience for more than 30 minutes, as they shut down the lights and the crew packed up and headed home.

I also noticed that George doesn’t do any retakes if he makes mistakes. I asked him about this, and he said that it makes for a more approachable style which is less stuffy. This informal style works for him in a big way, he makes the news fun. Seriously, who talks with the elocution and intonation of a news reader anyway. If my brother, Marc is reading this… no, I did not do my “Jim Junkin, CFTO News” impersonation for George!

From a PR point of view, the show’s guest selection process is something to take note of. The producers pitch guests to George and he has final approval. Tired of the MuchMusic days of being assigned to chat up any boy band or act that rolled into town, he only interviews people who he thinks are interesting or will give a good interview. I asked him what percentage of his guests are pitched by publicists or PR firms. I figured it would be less than 50 percent. His answer surprised me, as just one percent of guests get on the show as a result of a PR pitch. So just because your client is in town for a media tour doesn’t necessarily mean he/she will get a hit on The Hour.

If you are in Toronto, and have the time, go see George! Tickets are free but the show usually tapes around 4 PM, so you will have to play hooky or pitch it to your boss as some quality “professional development” time, like Jos and I did