John Kennedy O'Connor

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John Kennedy O'Connor (born in 1964) is a television and radio broadcaster, author, and entertainment commentator. He was born in North London, England, but is a naturalized citizen of the United States. [1] He has written, reported and broadcast for numerous media organizations, as well as writing, created and produced media events for a number of international corporations all over the world. [2] He is best known for his work within the Eurovision Song Contest as a TV commentator and host. Until 2023, he was the news anchor for NBC and CBS Northern California channels KIEM-TV and KVIQ-LD, before moving to CBS Station KIMA-TV in Washington, as the main anchor.

Contents

Eurovision Song Contest involvement

In 2005, Carlton Books published his book The Eurovision Song Contest – The Official History, in conjunction with the European Broadcasting Union, initially produced in English, German, French, Swedish, Dutch and Danish editions, with a separate English publication in Australia. [3] A Finnish version followed in 2007 as did a Russian version in 2009. [4] [ better source needed ] The book has been updated, expanded and reprinted three times in the UK. The 2010 edition ( ISBN   978-1-84732-521-1) was published by Carlton Books, UK, in April 2010. The first edition of the book, published to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv, Ukraine, was listed in the Top 10 book sales of both Amazon UK and Amazon Germany in May 2005, after being featured during the broadcast during an inset with the contest hosts Maria Efrosinina and Pavlo Shylko.[ citation needed ]

O'Connor's second Eurovision work, The Eurovision Song Contest: The Official Celebration, was published by Carlton Books in April 2015 ( ISBN   978-1780976389). The book was also published in German and Swedish editions. [5]

Since 2012, O'Connor has been the special host of San Marino RTV's Eurovision coverage, presenting the preview shows. In 2013, he was the first spokesperson of the final. [6] On 17 May, O'Connor presented a Eurovision PopMaster on BBC Radio 2, with Ken Bruce and Paddy O'Connell as the two contestants.

In 2014, together with his CreativeLive co-host Jamarie Milkovic, O'Connor provided English commentary for San Marino RTV live from Copenhagen, Denmark, and did so alone in 2015 for the second semifinal. During the Eurovision finals, he also reported for ABC News Australia, ABC Radio National Australia and once more guested on The Ken Bruce Show on BBC Radio 2 and BBC Breakfast on BBC1.

In 2018, O'Connor was one of the judges for 1in360 , the talent show to choose San Marino's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal. He again presented, as the spokesperson, the preview shows for San Marino RTV.

In celebration of the contest returning to the UK after an absence of twenty-five years, O'Connor was chosen to be San Marino's voting spokesman for the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 held in Liverpool.

Radio

Until the station closed, O'Connor was the American correspondent for digital station Gaydar Radio [7] in the UK, reporting for the Neil and Debbie Breakfast Show, covering live events including the Golden Globe Awards, the Grammy Awards, and the Oscars. [8] He also reported on the gay march held on May 17, 2009, in Moscow, Russia for Sky News. O'Connor has regularly reported for Sky News, Fox News in New York, [9] and ERT in Athens to the UK, [10] and has been a guest on BBC World News and BBC News 24 on TV [11] and "Today" on BBC Radio 4 with John Humphrys, BBC Radio 2's Steve Wright in the Afternoon with host Steve Wright and actress Brooke Shields on Radio. He has also contributed to many other BBC Radio programs, including BBC Radio 5 Live, The Big Toe Show on BBC Radio 7, BBC Radio Scotland, and numerous local BBC Radio stations including guest spots with Nicky Campbell, Judi Spiers, Richard Bacon, Paul Henley, Ted Robbins, Liz Kershaw and featured on the BBC World Service and LBC Radio. UK Channel 4's Jon Snow interviewed O'Connor live from Chicago when news of a scandal relating to the Eurovision Song Contest 1968 broke in May 2008. [12]

In Ireland, he has guested on Key 101 FM Radio with Eurovision winners Dana and Paul Harrington, RTÉ One's Rattlebag , Newstalk Radio and regularly contributes to BBC Radio Ulster.

In Australia, O'Connor has become a regular contributor to various ABC Radio National programs, including the now defunct Perspective program, hosted by producer Sue Clark, providing commentary on British and International Politics as well as popular culture issues. [13] Among other stories, O'Connor reported on the underlying racism of the 2008 US General Election, Gordon Brown's accession as British Prime Minister and the international media coverage of the 2007 Australian federal election, for the program. [14] He has also regularly appeared on ABC's Radio National Breakfast Show with Fran Kelly and many local radio stations in Australia and was the featured guest on an hour-long special on the Triple J ABC station.

Television

In May 2010, O'Connor appeared with Justin Lee Collins on UK Channel Five, advising Collins on his quest to represent a country at the Eurovision Song Contest 2010 in the show Eurovision: A Song For Justin. [15] During the 2010 contest in Oslo, Norway, O'Connor appeared on Aljazeera TV, BBC World News & BBC News Channel with James Dagwell on E24 [16] and after a one-on-one interview, won PopMaster on BBC Radio 2's Ken Bruce show, playing against Paddy O'Connell in a Eurovision spoof of the regular feature, a feat he repeated in 2012 against the BBC Moscow Correspondent Steven Rosenberg. He was also featured on ITV News and BBC Local Radio live from Oslo. In 2011, O'Connor was featured in the documentary The Secret History of Eurovision , shown in More4 in the UK.

Since 2013, O'Connor has been the lead on-screen host for the educational broadcaster CreativeLive, fronting a variety of multi-day live broadcasts from the platforms San Francisco studios.

At the end of 2014, it was announced on Twitter and PBS.org that O'Connor was recording a series for PBS on international architecture and was filming the first episode in Kuala Lumpur and San Francisco with César Pelli as the subject. The six-part series (also featuring Norman Foster and I.M.Pei) aired across the US in the summer of 2015. In August 2015, O'Connor was recording a travel series focussing on India, Nepal and Myanmar.

In February 2020, O'Connor became the host of FacebookLive, broadcast bi-weekly on the social network's blueprint platform. In May 2021, O'Connor became the host of the irregular corporate online newscast The Zero Trust Exchange, produced by ZScaler.

From February 2022, O'Connor became the news anchor for NBC and CBS Northern California channels KIEM-TV and KVIQ-LD. In July 2023, he became the main news anchor for CBS station KIMA-TV in Washington.

Newspaper

O'Connor's written work has been published in the United Kingdom in (among others) the Sunday Express , Daily Mail , Radio Times , Private Eye , Northern Woman and The News of the World . In the United States, he had a syndicated column originating in San Francisco, primarily published in Playlands magazine, a local guide to entertainment and has been interviewed by The Guardian , [17] The New York Times , the San Francisco Chronicle , the San Jose Mercury News , the Houston Chronicle and other American daily papers. He has been profiled in Meetings & Conventions Magazine.

For the 60th anniversary of Eurovision, The Telegraph ran O'Connor's (accurate) predictions for the result in the run-up to the competition. [18] The Star also ran a detailed discussion of the UK's contest chances for 2015. [19] Previously, Oikotimes.com ran a series of seven articles written by O'Connor in January 2011, tracing the history of Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest. Concurrently, the UK Daily Mail , reporting on the BBC's selection of the group Blue to sing for Britain in the Eurovision Song Contest 2011, quoted from an article written by O'Connor for ESCInsight.com.

In 2006, O'Connor was featured in the UK editions of Metro for their "60 Seconds Interview" column. [20] In 2007, O'Connor contributed on camera items for both the Associated Press and Reuters for broadcast, in addition to video spots on AOL's Big Story. Online, he has been interviewed by ESCToday.com [21] and Oikotimes.com [22] about the Eurovision Song Contest.

Related Research Articles

The Eurovision Song Contest, often known simply as Eurovision or by its initialism ESC, is an international song competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union. Each participating country submits an original song to be performed live and transmitted to national broadcasters via the Eurovision and Euroradio networks, with competing countries then casting votes for the other countries' songs to determine a winner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eurovision Song Contest 1960</span> International song competition

The Eurovision Song Contest 1960 was the fifth edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest, held on Tuesday 29 March 1960 at the Royal Festival Hall in London, United Kingdom, and hosted by British television presenter and actress Catherine Boyle. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the United Kingdom was offered the rights to stage the contest after the Netherlands, which had won the 1959 contest, declined the opportunity after having organised the event in 1958.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eurovision Song Contest 1992</span> International song competition

The Eurovision Song Contest 1992 was the 37th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 9 May 1992 at the Malmö Isstadion in Malmö, Sweden. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Sveriges Television (SVT), and presented by Lydia Capolicchio and Harald Treutiger, the contest was held in Sweden following the country's victory at the 1991 contest with the song "Fångad av en stormvind" by Carola.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eurovision Song Contest 1976</span> International song competition

The Eurovision Song Contest 1976 was the 21st edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in The Hague, Netherlands, following the country's victory at the 1975 contest with the song "Ding-a-dong" by Teach-In. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Nederlandse Omroep Stichting (NOS), the contest was held at the Nederlands Congrescentrum on 3 April 1976 and was hosted by 1957 Dutch Eurovision winner Corry Brokken.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terry Wogan</span> Irish-British radio and television broadcaster (1938–2016)

Sir Michael Terence Wogan was an Irish-British radio and television broadcaster who worked for the BBC in the UK for most of his career. Between 1993 and his semi-retirement in December 2009, his BBC Radio 2 weekday breakfast programme Wake Up to Wogan regularly drew an estimated eight million listeners. He was believed to be the most listened-to radio broadcaster in Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katie Boyle</span> Italian-born British actress, presenter

Caterina Irene Elena Maria Boyle, Lady Saunders, usually known as Katie Boyle, was an Italian-born British actress, writer, radio announcer, television personality and game-show panellist. She became best known for presenting the Eurovision Song Contest on a record four occasions: in 1960, 1963, 1968 and 1974; the first three in London and the last in Brighton, England. She was also an agony aunt, answering problems that had been posted by readers of the TVTimes.

The United Kingdom's entry into the Eurovision Song Contest 1997 was "Love Shine a Light" by Katrina and the Waves. The entry was chosen during the UK selection show, The Great British Song Contest, hosted by Dale Winton on 9 March, with the results announced six days later. The UK went on to win the song contest which was being held in Dublin, Ireland, with an unprecedented 227 points. The 1997 contest is last win for the United Kingdom so far.

The United Kingdom competed in the Eurovision Song Contest 1999, held on 29 May 1999 at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem, Israel. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) organised a public selection process to determine its entry for the contest, The Great British Song Contest 1999. Eight songs competed over two rounds, with four songs selected through a radio-broadcast semi-final to advance to the televised final round, held on 7 March 1999, where viewers selected the winning entry through televoting. Girl group Precious received the most votes and were selected to represent the nation in the contest with the song "Say It Again".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Kingdom in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest</span> Overview of the role of the United Kingdom in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest

The United Kingdom first participated in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest at the inaugural 2003 edition which took place in Copenhagen, Denmark. ITV, a member organisation of the United Kingdom Independent Broadcasting (UKIB) and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), was responsible for the selection process of their participation from 2003 to 2005. The United Kingdom used a national selection format, broadcasting a show entitled Junior Eurovision Song Contest: The British Final, for their participation at the contests. The first representative to participate for the nation at the 2003 contest was Tom Morley with the song "My Song For The World", which finished in third place out of sixteen participating entries, achieving a score of one hundred and eighteen points. The United Kingdom withdrew from competing after the 2005 contest, but returned to the contest in 2022 in Yerevan, Armenia, with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) replacing ITV as the country's broadcaster.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UK national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest</span> BBC TV show

Eurovision: You Decide is the most recent name of a BBC television programme that was broadcast annually to select the United Kingdom's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. The show had previously gone under several other names, including Festival of British Popular Songs (1957), Eurovision Song Contest British Final (1959–1960), The Great British Song Contest (1996–1999), Eurovision: Making Your Mind Up (2004–2007), Eurovision: Your Decision (2008), and Eurovision: Your Country Needs You (2009–2010), but was known, for most of its history, as A Song for Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monaco in the Eurovision Song Contest</span> National participation in the contest

Monaco has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 24 times since its debut in 1959. The country's only win in the contest came in 1971, when Séverine performed "Un banc, un arbre, une rue". As a result, Monaco was expected to host the contest in 1972, but it ultimately declined. Monaco is the only microstate to have won the contest to date.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Eurovision Song Contest</span> History of the annual song competition

The Eurovision Song Contest was first held in 1956, originally conceived as an experiment in transnational television broadcasting. Following a series of exchange broadcasts in 1954, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) commissioned an international song competition, from an idea developed by Sergio Pugliese and Marcel Bezençon and originally based on the Italian Sanremo Music Festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Marino in the Eurovision Song Contest</span>

San Marino has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 13 times, debuting in the 2008 contest, followed by participation from 2011 onward. The nation did not participate in 2009 or 2010, citing financial difficulties. Having failed to qualify in their first four attempts, the nation qualified for the contest's final for the first time in 2014. Valentina Monetta represented San Marino in 2012, 2013 and 2014, making her the first entrant to participate in three consecutive contests since the 1960s. In 2019, Serhat managed to qualify to the final, marking the second appearance of the country in a Eurovision final and achieving their best result to date of 19th place. Following the 2020 contest's cancellation due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe, their 2020 candidate Senhit was again selected to represent San Marino in the following contest. She qualified to the final, making it the first time that San Marino made it to two consecutive finals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cry Baby (Jemini song)</span> Song by Martin Isherwood performed by Jemini for UK at Eurovision 2003

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">LGBT visibility in the Eurovision Song Contest</span>

The Eurovision Song Contest has had a long-held fan base in the LGBTQIA+ community, and Eurovision organisers have actively worked to include these fans in the contest since the 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eurovision Song Contest 2023</span> International song competition

The Eurovision Song Contest 2023 was the 67th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Liverpool, United Kingdom, as Ukraine—the winner of the 2022 contest with the song "Stefania" by Kalush Orchestra—was unable to host the event due to the Russian invasion of the country. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) acting as host broadcaster behalf of the Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine (UA:PBC). The contest was held at Liverpool Arena, and consisted of two semi-finals on 9 and 11 May and a final on 13 May 2023. The shows were presented by British singer Alesha Dixon, British actress Hannah Waddingham and Ukrainian singer Julia Sanina, with Irish television presenter Graham Norton joining for the final.

The United Kingdom participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 in Turin, Italy. British singer-songwriter Sam Ryder represented the country with his song "Space Man", which he co-wrote with Max Wolfgang and Amy Wadge. He was selected as the 2022 UK entrant by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in collaboration with record label TaP Music and their management company.

References

  1. The Eurovision Song Contest - The Official Celebration. O'Connor, John Kennedy. Carlton Books 2015. ISBN   978-1780976389. Page 3
  2. O'Connor, John Kennedy: The Eurovision Song Contest – The Official History, page 2. Carlton Books, UK 2007, ISBN   978-1-84442-586-0
  3. "EBU.CH :: 2005_05_18_ESC". Archived from the original on 7 June 2011. Retrieved 24 May 2009.
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  6. "Junior Eurovision Song Contest – Kyiv 2013 (4° parte) – Video SMTV San Marino 05/12/2013". Smtvsanmarino.sm.
  7. "Gaydio". Gaydarradio.com.
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  12. JKMMOC. "EUROVISION CHANNEL 4 NEWS May 7, 2008". YouTube. Archived from the original on 20 December 2021.
  13. "John Kennedy O'Connor: Brown's Ascedency". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 25 June 2007.
  14. "John Kennedy O'Connor: The invisible election". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 20 November 2007.
  15. "YouTube". YouTube.[ dead YouTube link ]
  16. JKMMOC. "Eurovision 2010 BBC News E24". YouTube. Archived from the original on 20 December 2021.
  17. Alexandra Topping (10 May 2009). "South Ossetia on our minds ... the Georgians who fell foul of Eurovision". The Guardian.
  18. Leon Siciliano (23 May 2015). "Who will win the Eurovision Song Contest?". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 21 May 2015.
  19. Mike Ward (10 March 2015). "Is this the pair to bring Eurovision glory back to the UK? Let's ask the show's expert". Daily Star .
  20. Andrew Williams (17 May 2006). "60 Seconds: John Kennedy O'Connor". Metro .
  21. Eurovision Song Contest Serbia 2008 | News – Review: The Eurovision Song Contest 50 Years: the Official Companion Archived 24 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine
  22. Eurovision Song Contest | Belgrade (Serbia) 2008 – Articles