This is the Canadian Section of
The Broadcast Archive

Maintained by:
Barry Mishkind - The Eclectic Engineer
Last Update 1/3/05

http//broadcasting-history.ca/index2.html

Canadian Broadcasting:

  • History
  • Regulation
  • Station Identifications
  • Station Histories

Canadian Broadcast History:

One of Marconi's famous early wireless telegraphy stations was set up in Glace Bay Nova Scotia, in 1902.

The first station to broadcast in Canada was XWA in Montreal (later called VE9AM, CFCF, then CIQC)).

  • First Broadcast: May 20, 1920.
  • XWA was owned by the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company.
  • The first experimental transmissions were in late 1919, according to Canadian historian Professor Mary Vipond, who wrote a book on early Canadian broadcasting called "Listening In".
  • The first thing broadcast was a concert by a female vocalist, Dorothy Lutton.

The second station appears to have been CJCE, Vancouver, BC, opened March 14, 1922.

Other early stations include:

  • CJNC, Winnipeg MB - April 20, 1922
  • CJCA, Edmonton AB - May 1, 1922
  • CJCG Winnipeg MB - May 7, 1922
  • CJBC, Montreal PQ - May 19, 1922; perhaps the first french radio station in the world.
  • CKAC, Montreal PQ - September 20, 1922; it has been on 730 kHz since February 21, 1925.

A good look at early broadcasting in Canada can be found at the Hammond Museum of Radio in Guelph, Ontario.

By 1929, there were over 60 stations in operation in Canada. Few were high power or gave full service. One major owner of stations was Canadian National Railways (CN), which experimented in using the wireless to send transmissions to moving trains. CN first opened CKCH in Ottawa on February 27, 1924. In July, CN began "renting" the CNxx prefix from Morocco, so its stations could be CNRO, CNRA, etc.

With the Aird Commission (below) and the CRBC, there was an attempt to convert all broadcasting to State owned facilities. While the CBC became a major force, commercial broadcasting continued.

FM Broadcasting started just after World War II ended. The CBC's first FM outlets were built in Montreal for English and French service (two stations), and one each in Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver. At least one station, CKOI-FM in Montreal, is licensed for over 300 kW (307,000 watts).

A Canadian television service was authorized in 1949, and opened in 1952.

One of the more contentious parts of Canadian Broadcast History is the Canadian Content (Cancon) requirements. Launched in 1970, to maintain a sense of Canadian stations being "Canadian," it required 30% of all broadcast content be of Canadian origin. (In 1994, CJCA was shut down for violating this rule.)

With music, a special system was created to clarify what is considered Canadian Content and what isn't. Last modified in 1991, most compact discs and cassettes in Canada come with the MAPL symbol on them. It's a simple circle divided into four parts (M, A, P and L) Two of the four parts must be shaded to be considered Canadian Content.

M = Music
A = Artist
P = Producer
L = Lyrics

In the late 1990s and into the new century, there has been a real migration of Canadian AM stations onto the FM dial. In some cases, the AM channel is left idle, in others "specialized" stations have taken over.

Regulation:

The Wireless Telegraph Act of 1905 in Canada, named the Department of Marine and Fisheries as the licensing agency. In 1913, amateurs using voice transmission were brought under WTA regulation.

In 1913, Canada passed the Radiotelegraph Act which rested the power of licensing in the Federal government.

The Radio Branch of the Department of the Naval Service:

  • Licensing specifically for "private commercial broadcasting" was begun on April 1, 1922.
  • Previously, all radio was considered experimental no matter whether or not a professional company owned the station.
  • Radio listeners also had to have licenses! If you had a radio receiver, you had to purchase a license for it as of January 1922; the first such licenses cost $1.

The Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission:

  • The 1929 Aird Commission recommended a publicly-owned broadcast system. The CRBC was created by the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Act, passed by Parliament on May 26, 1932.
  • The CRBC wielded broad regulatory powers, however the Depression times led to the underfunding. As a result, the CRBC was forced to establish ties and interdependencies with commerical and existing public stations in order to fulfill its mandate.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and extensions:

  • The CBC was created on November 2, 1936. The CBC essentially regulated as well as broadcast.
  • In 1958, under Prime Minister John Defeinbaker, and acting partially on the recommendations of the Fowler Commisssion, Canada enacted the Broadcasting Act of 1958, creating a Board of Broadcast Governors (BBG). This 15-man group carried out the regulatory functions of the CBC, while leaving the CBC as public broadcaster.
  • In 1968, the Canadian Radio-Television Commission (CRTC) replaced the BBG, and added the regulation of cable television to its responsibilities. The body was renamed the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commisssion in 1976.
  • Industry Canada, formerly the Dept of Transportation, industrial division, regulates the technical aspects of Canadian broadcasting.

Station Identification:

The ITU originally assigned the call letter blocks VAA to VGZ to Canada.

  • For a while, UWA-UZZ was assigned to Canada, but deleted in 1934.
  • Also in 1934, Canada was assigned the blocks CFA-CKZ and VXA-VYZ originally assigned to "Great Britain and protectorates," and CYA-CZZ, originally assigned to Mexico.
  • Newfoundland was assigned VOA-VOZ, and was assimilated into Canada's assignment when Newfoundland became part of Canada on April 1, 1949.

Today, Canadian station normally use call letters from the CFAA-CKZZ block.

Station Histories:

Some histories of Canadian stations appear here. More will be added as received.

My appreciation to Donna Halper, Mike Laverdiere and Joseph Wilfred John FitzPatrick III for their assistance on this page.