Doug McConnell

Last updated
Doug McConnell
NationalityAmerican
Alma materPomona College
OccupationTelevision journalist
McConnell hosted Pet Pride Day in Golden Gate Park for many years. Doug MCCONNELL, host of 2002 Pet Pride Day in Golden Gate Park.jpg
McConnell hosted Pet Pride Day in Golden Gate Park for many years.

Doug McConnell is a television journalist who has focused on environmental issues, with programs on the air continuously since 1982. [1] He has created, produced and hosted many series, special programs, and news projects for local, national and international distribution. His broadcast awards include multiple Emmys, an Iris, and a Gabriel.

Contents

McConnell is co-founder and managing partner of ConvergenceMedia Productions (CMP) in Sausalito, California. One of CMP's principal products is OpenRoad with Doug McConnell, Exploring the West for Public Television nationally. OpenRoad on Public Television is closely linked to www.OpenRoad.TV, The Traveler's Video Guide to the West. McConnell is co-executive producer and managing editor for both ventures. McConnell also develops and oversees other media projects undertaken by CMP.

From 1993-2009 McConnell was the host and senior editor of the Bay Area Backroads television series on KRON Television in the San Francisco Bay Area. [2] Bay Area Backroads was one of the longest-running regional television series in American broadcast history, and was consistently the highest-rated locally produced, non-news program in the nation's sixth-largest market. During his Backroads years, McConnell co-authored two best-selling travel publications for Chronicle Books.

Television programs

OpenRoad with Doug McConnell, Exploring the West

OpenRoad with Doug McConnell, Exploring the West began on San Francisco Public Television station KQED and its sister station in San Jose, KTEH, in April 2009. [3]

Bay Area Backroads

The Bay Area Backroads program aired for 23 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, from 1985 through 2008. It began as a news magazine-style segment at local station KRON, when Jerry Graham profiled a local eccentric who carved tiki statues in his front yard. McConnell was hired to complete the 1993 season after Graham's retirement, and remained as host for 15 years. [4] The show's theme was to highlight offbeat individuals from the Bay Area, creating the impression that the production crew was simply encountering them on a recreational driving tour (when in fact, there was a small research team that had planned every show). [4]

Other programs

In addition to Bay Area Backroads, McConnell's TV programs include:

McConnell’s national specials and mini-series include:

Personal life

McConnell received a bachelor's degree in Government from Pomona College (1967), and a master's degree in Political Science from the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University (1968).

Since 1983, McConnell has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, two sons, and a bevy of pets. He maintains a busy schedule of community activities, including serving on the Advisory Board of the local environmental watchdog San Francisco Baykeeper, and has been honored recently by the Marin Humane Society as "Humanitarian of the Year," by the San Francisco Bay Trail Project as "Volunteer of the Year," by California State Parks as "Honorary Ranger of the Year," and by the National Park Service as "Honorary National Park Ranger." McConnell has received many regional Emmys and other broadcast awards during his long career in television. In addition, McConnell has been given the prestigious Harold Gilliam Award for environmental reporting and storytelling in Northern California.

Beyond his television work, McConnell has managed significant communications programs for the President's Commission on Coal, the Governor of Alaska, the University of Alaska, The Institute of Ecology, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and many other institutions.

McConnell's most recent venture is the creation of an online travel community called "OpenRoad.TV with Doug McConnell - The Traveler's Video Guide to the American West". OpenRoad.TV will be stocked with all the video, knowledge and insights that McConnell has compiled over the years and continues to collect. The professionally produced video content will be organized into easily accessible geographical and categorical contexts, with users being invited to vastly enrich it by adding their own stories, photographs and videos. The goal of OpenRoad.TV is to provide a website that's extensive, deep, entertaining and informative, and becomes a valuable resource to help people imagine, plan and book travels and get to know intriguing fellow travelers in the process.

Related Research Articles

Barry David Tompkins is an American sportscaster. He is better known for his work as a boxing commentator, but he has covered football and other sports.

Sutro Tower TV and radio antenna tower in San Francisco

Sutro Tower is a unique three-legged 977 ft (298 m) tall TV and radio lattice tower located in San Francisco, California. Rising from a hill between Twin Peaks and Mount Sutro near Clarendon Heights, it is a prominent feature of the city skyline and a landmark for city residents and visitors. The tower was the tallest structure in San Francisco from the time of its completion in 1973 until it was surpassed by the Salesforce Tower in 2017.

KOVR CBS TV station in Stockton, California

KOVR, virtual channel 13, is a CBS owned-and-operated television station serving Sacramento, California, United States that is licensed to Stockton. The station is owned by the CBS Television Stations subsidiary of ViacomCBS, as part of a duopoly with Sacramento-licensed CW owned-and-operated station KMAX-TV. The two stations share studios on KOVR Drive in West Sacramento; KOVR's transmitter is located in Walnut Grove.

KBCW (TV) CW TV station in San Francisco

KBCW, virtual channel 44, is a CW owned-and-operated television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States and serving the San Francisco Bay Area. Owned by the CBS Television Stations subsidiary of ViacomCBS, it is part of a duopoly with CBS owned-and-operated station KPIX-TV, also licensed to San Francisco. Both stations share studios at Broadway and Battery Street, just north of San Francisco's Financial District, while KBCW's transmitter is located atop Sutro Tower.

KNTV NBC TV station in San Jose, California

KNTV, virtual channel 11, branded on-air as NBC Bay Area, is an NBC owned-and-operated television station licensed to San Jose, California, United States and serving the San Francisco Bay Area. Owned by the NBC Owned Television Stations subsidiary of NBCUniversal, it is part of a duopoly with Telemundo owned-and-operated station KSTS, also licensed to San Jose; it is also sister to regional sports networks NBC Sports Bay Area and NBC Sports California. KNTV and KSTS share studios on North 1st Street in the North San Jose Innovation District; KNTV's transmitter is located on San Bruno Mountain.

KPIX-TV CBS TV station in San Francisco

KPIX-TV, virtual channel 5, is a CBS owned-and-operated television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States and serving the San Francisco Bay Area. Owned by the CBS Television Stations subsidiary of ViacomCBS, it is part of a duopoly with CW owned-and-operated station KBCW, also licensed to San Francisco. Both stations share studios at Broadway and Battery Street, just north of San Francisco's Financial District, while KPIX's transmitter is located atop Sutro Tower. In addition to KBCW, KPIX shares its building with formerly co-owned radio stations KCBS, KFRC-FM, KGMZ, KITS, KLLC and KRBQ, although they use a different address number for Battery Street.

KTVU Fox TV station in Oakland, California

KTVU, virtual channel 2, is a Fox owned-and-operated television station licensed to Oakland, California, United States and serving the San Francisco Bay Area. Owned by the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of Fox Corporation, it is part of a duopoly with San Jose-licensed independent station KICU-TV. Both stations share studios at Jack London Square in Oakland, while KTVU's transmitter is located atop Sutro Tower in San Francisco.

KRON-TV MyNetworkTV affiliate in San Francisco

KRON-TV, virtual channel 4, is a MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States and serving the San Francisco Bay Area. The station is owned by Irving, Texas-based Nexstar Media Group. KRON-TV maintains studios on Front Street immediately west of San Francisco's Embarcadero north of the city's Financial District, in the same building as ABC owned-and-operated station (O&O) KGO-TV, channel 7. The transmitting antenna, shared with Fox O&O KTVU and CBS O&O KPIX-TV, is located atop Sutro Tower in San Francisco.

PM/Evening Magazine was a television series with a news and entertainment format. It was syndicated to stations throughout the United States. In most areas, Evening/PM Magazine was broadcast from the late 1970s into the late 1980s.

Evening Magazine is the name of various news and entertainment-style local television shows in different markets.

Gary Kelley Radunich, known as Gary Radnich, is a retired radio and television host in the San Francisco bay area. He hosted The Gary Radnich Show which ran weekday mornings on KNBR radio, and was the lead sports anchor on KRON television.

David William McElhatton was an evening news anchor for several decades in San Francisco, California, in the United States. He was in the first class of inductees to the Bay Area Hall of Fame. He retired in 2000.

BayTV was a 24-hour regional cable news and sports channel that served the San Francisco Bay Area and operated from July 1994 to August 2001. It was originally owned as a joint venture between the locally based Chronicle Publishing Company and cable provider Tele-Communications, Inc.. Young Broadcasting acquired majority control of the channel after it acquired parent television station KRON-TV in November 1999, while TCI's interest transferred to AT&T Broadband upon its acquisition of TCI earlier that year.

Jim Paymar

James Paymar is an American journalist and strategic communications specialist. He has worked as a financial correspondent and anchor for CNBC and Businessweek in New York and served as general manager of KCNS-TV in San Francisco. He anchored and reported the news for New York network flagship stations WNBC-TV, WABC-TV and Fox Broadcasting Company in New York. He also anchored and reported for KRON-TV in San Francisco, KOMO-TV in Seattle and KNTV in San Jose.

Bay Area Television Archive

The Bay Area Television Archive (BATA) is a regional moving image archive. It preserves and digitally restores 16mm newsfilm, documentaries and other shows produced by TV stations in Northern California (1948–2005), local Emmy Award-winning programs (1974–2005) and privately donated film collections (1939–2004).

Ohlone College

Ohlone College is a public community college with its main campus in Fremont, California and a second campus in Newark. It is part of the California Community College System. The Ohlone Community College District serves the cities of Fremont and Newark, as well as parts of Union City.

Jan Hutchins

Jan Darwin Hutchins is an American TV and radio journalist, producer and media consultant. Hutchins was born in Danville, Illinois and grew up in Ohio. He studied at Yale University, graduating with a B.A. in History in 1971. He started his career in 1972 as a sports journalist at the WIIC TV station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After moving to California, Hutchins worked from 1974 to 1990 as a sportscaster on the KPIX TV channel in San Francisco and at KRON. In 1981, he joined KICU in San Jose when the San Francisco Bay Area independent television station initiated its news broadcasts, co-anchoring the prime time news program with Ysabel Duron until 1991. From 1993-1995, Hutchins served as the director of community development for the San Francisco Giants baseball team. He hosted sports, news and public affairs programs for San Francisco area radio stations and from 1997 to 2000 worked at American Champion Media, which, along with KTEH-TV, produced "Adventures with Kanga Roddy", a children's television series about emotional intelligence that aired on PBS and starred Pat Morita, Jennifer Montana and Karen Lott. The show won Northern California Area EMMY Awards in 1999 and 2000. From 1996-1999 Hutchins served on the city council of Los Gatos, CA both as a vice-mayor and mayor and later founded a local yoga center. He lives currently in Tucson AZ where he works as a coach and mentor; enjoying retirement on the golf course. Divorced from Olga Kastrova, former business associate for five years.

Sky Link TV is the first 24/7 Chinese satellite TV network in the United States. Sky Link TV is a U.S. Chinese entertainment and news distributor with three areas of prominence, TV, Digital and Content. Sky Link TV is on OTA and MVPD in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and nationally. Sky Link Content develops and acquires the best entertainment and news content from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the U.S. Sky Link Media engages the Chinese consumer wherever they are.

Wendy Tokuda is an American television journalist.

References

  1. Schlesinger, Victoria. "Meet Local Hero Doug McConnell". Bay Nature. Retrieved 2021-04-13.
  2. "Bio: Doug McConnell". NBC Bay Area . San Jose, California. April 21, 2015. Retrieved March 11, 2018.
  3. Bravo, Tony (April 29, 2015). "Doug McConnell of 'Bay Area Backroads' back on TV". San Francisco Chronicle . Retrieved March 11, 2018.
  4. 1 2 Peter Hartlaub (2008-08-28). "'Bay Area Backroads' on 'production hiatus'". San Francisco Chronicle.
  5. Hartlaub, Peter (August 29, 2008). "Gone But Not Forgotten: "Mac and Mutley"". San Francisco Chronicle . Retrieved March 12, 2018.