History of broadcasting in Canada

The active history of broadcasting in Canada begins in 1921, as Canadians were swept up in the radio craze and bought radio sets to listen to American stations.

Early period=

American stations could easily be received in the heavily populated parts of Canada. By most accounts, the first Canadian station was XWA, an experimental station from the Marconi Company in Montréal. It began its broadcasts in late 1919 and continued them during 1920. In November 1922, the station was assigned the call letters of CFCF—which stood for Canada's First. In Toronto, the first radio station was operated by the Toronto Star newspaper. The station, CKCE, first used the transmitter and call letters of the Canadian Independent Telephone Company, and began some broadcasts in April 1922. These broadcasts were so well received that the Star pushed forward with its own studios and transmitting facilities, returning to the air as CFCA in late June 1922. Meanwhile in Montreal, another newspaper, La Presse, put its own station, CKAC on the air in late September 1922. Because there were governmental limitations on radio frequencies back then, CKAC and CFCF alternated—one would broadcast one night, and the other would broadcast the night after that. For a time, CKAC was broadcasting some programs in French, and some in English: in 1924, for example, the station rebroadcast fifteen Boston Bruins hockey games from station WBZ in Boston. Meanwhile, in other Canadian provinces, 1922 was also the year for their first stations, including CJCE in Vancouver, and CQCA (which soon became CHCQ) in Calgary.

But while radio in Canada continued to grow in popularity during the mid-1920s, a problem arose: the U.S. stations dominated the airwaves and with a limited number of frequencies available for broadcasters to use, it was the American stations that seemed to get most of them. This was despite an agreement with the US Department of Commerce (which supervised broadcasting in the years prior to the Federal Radio Commission) that a certain number of frequencies were reserved exclusively for Canadian signals. But if a US station wanted one of those frequencies, the Department of Commerce seemed unwilling to stop it, much to the frustration of Canadian owners who wanted to put stations on the air. The Canadian government and the US government began negotiations in late 1926, in hopes of finding a satisfactory solution. Meanwhile, in 1928, Canada got its first network, operated by the Canadian National Railways. CNR had already made itself known in radio since 1923, thanks in large part to the leadership of CNR's president, Sir Henry Thornton. The company began equipping its trains with radio receivers, and allowed passengers to hear radio stations from Canada and the US. In 1924, CN began building its own stations, and by 1928, it was able to create a network. In 1932, the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission was formed, and in 1936, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the country's national radio service, made its debut.

CNR 1923-33

CNR Radio was the first national radio network in North America. (officially the Canadian National Railways Radio Department) It was developed, owned and operated by the Canadian National Railway between 1923 and 1932 to provide en route entertainment and information for its train passengers. As broadcasts could be received by anyone living in the coverage area of station transmitters, the network provided radio programming to Canadians from the Pacific coast (at Vancouver) to the Atlantic coast (at Halifax).

During its nine-year existence, CNR Radio provided music, sports, information and drama programming to Canadians. Programming was produced in English, French and occasionally in some First Nations languages, and distributed nationwide through the railway's own telegraph lines and through rented airtime on other private radio stations. However, political and competitive pressure forced CNR Radio to close, with many of its assets and personnel migrating to a new government-operated agency, the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (CRBC), which ultimately led to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

News

The development of radio news broadcasting in Canada, as in the United States, was delayed by bitter conflict between newspaper and radio interests.

See also

• History of broadcasting
• CNR Radio, The radio network operated by Canadian National Railway 1923-33
• Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission
• Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Further reading

• Ali, Christopher. "A broadcast system in whose interest? Tracing the origins of broadcast localism in Canadian and Australian television policy, 1950–1963." International Communication Gazette 74.3 (2012): 277-297.
• Allen, Gene, and Daniel J. Robinson, eds. Communicating in Canada's Past: Essays in Media History (University of Toronto Press, 2009)
• Filion, Michel. "Broadcasting and cultural identity: the Canadian experience." Media, Culture & Society (1996) 18#3 pp: 447-467. Online
• Gasher, Mike, and David Skinner, eds. Mass communication in Canada (Oxford University Press, 2012)
• Gasher, Mike. "Invoking public support for public broadcasting: The Aird Commission revisited." Canadian Journal of Communication 23.2 (1998). online
• Godfrey, Donald G., and David R. Spencer. "Canadian Marconi: CFCF television from Signal Hill to the Canadian Television Network." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 44.3 (2000): 437-455. online
• Johnston, Russell. "The emergence of broadcast advertising in Canada, 1919–1932." Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 17.1 (1997): 29-47.
• MacLennan, Anne F. "American network broadcasting, the CBC, and Canadian radio stations during the 1930s: A content analysis." Journal of Radio Studies 12.1 (2005): 85-103. online
• Skinner, David. "Divided Loyalties: The Early Development of Canada's" Single" Broadcasting System." Journal of Radio Studies 12.1 (2005): 136-155.
• Stewart, Peggy. Radio Ladies: Canada's Women on the Air 1922-1975 (2nd ed. Magnetewan Publishing, 2012) Further details
• Vipond, Mary. Listening In: The First Decade of Canadian Broadcasting 1922-1932. (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1992)
• Vipond, Mary. The mass media in Canada (James Lorimer & Company, 2000)
• Vipond, Mary. "The beginnings of public broadcasting in Canada: the CRBC, 1932-1936." Canadian Journal of Communication (1994) 19#2 online
• Vipond, Mary. "The continental marketplace: Authority, advertisers, and audiences in Canadian news broadcasting, 1932–1936." Journal of Radio Studies (1999) 6#1 pp: 169-184.
• Vipond, Mary. "One Network or Two? French-Language Programming on the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission, 1932–36." Canadian Historical Review 89.3 (2008): 319-343.
• Vipond, Mary. "Going Their Own Way: The relationship between the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission and the BBC, 1933–36." Media History 15.1 (2009): 71-83.
• Vipond, Mary. "British or American?: Canada's ‘mixed’broadcasting system in the 1930s." Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media 2.2 (2004): 89-100.
• Webb, Jeffrey Allison. The voice of Newfoundland: a social history of the Broadcasting Corporation of Newfoundland, 1939-1949 (University of Toronto Press, 2008)

Primary sources

• Bird, Richard, ed. Documents of Canadian Broadcasting (1988)online