How God Created the CBC (with a little help from his friends)

That’s the title from a chapter in Sandy Stewart’s book From Coast to Coast: A Personal History of Radio in Canada, and upon seeing that listing in the table of contents, I knew I was in good hands.

Actually, the realisation occurred the moment I reached into Garry Moir's Safeway shopping bag (not Steve Vogelsang’s Bucket of Glory) and pulled out the slip of paper that was to be my presentation topic for radio class: the formation of the CBC.

(Somebody needs to knit me this sweater.)

Photo credit.

I’ve been listening to CBC radio since the day I was born (and probably absorbed its radio waves while in the womb) thanks to my devoted parents, who quite literally listened to nothing else.

I grew up listening to Ron Robinson’s weekend morning show, and Garry Moir reading the weekend news. By about age eight I could recite from memory the “toll free” number for call-ins (1-800-268-5483) and the noon announcement (“the beginning of the long dash following ten seconds of silence indicating exactly 12 noon”, etc.)

So when I opened Stewart’s book from the library and saw the title of his chapter on the CBC, I “LOL”ed for real.

To a girl who, for quite some time, received all her news from the CBC and thought it was the only channel on the radio dial, here was a man who thought like me.

And for the rest of the night, I sat curled up on the floor reading about how my radio god was born:

Religion, Politics, and the CBC

Usually politics and religion are the catalysts to end relationships, not start them. But it was discussing these two very topics on the radio that eventually led to the formation of the CBC.

Back in the late 1920s, radio stations received essentially no funding from the government (who would collect license fees, but use the money for purposes other than radio), but found churches were willing to provide cash to use the medium as a way of broadcasting their message to large audiences.

The National Bible Students Association of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, for instance, owned stations in Vancouver, Edmonton, Saskatoon, and a phantom station (broadcasting from a station where they leased air time) in Toronto; however, problems arose in 1927-28 when broadcasts by the Jehovah’s Witnesses were found to contain anti-Christian messages.

P.J.A. Cardin, the minister for broadcasting at the time, decided that the best solution would be to quietly switch the frequencies of such stations, essentially forcing them off the air.

When the word got out, Parliament erupted in a debate over the issue of freedom of religion, and ended with the government searching for a Canadian broadcasting system which would have appropriate policies and regulations.

In 1932, the CRBC (Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission) was created – the forerunner for what would become the CBC.

The CRBC did pretty well until the 1935 election between the in-power Conservatives, under R.B. Bennett, and the Liberals, under Mackenzie King.

The Conservative ad agency created a series of radio broadcasts which were in actuality dramatized political propaganda in the form of “Mr. Sage”: a crotchety old man who would sit on his front porch complaining (and defaming) the Liberal party.

Cheekily, no sponsor was listed for the radio broadcasts – even when the Liberal’s demanded one, the name that was announced following the broadcasts was that of an employee at the ad agency, and not the Conservative party.

The Liberals won the election, and with it, Mackenzie King decided to put an end to the propaganda. On November 2, 1936, the CBC was created as a crown corporation under the Canadian Broadcasting Act.

Under the Act, the CBC was subject to certain regulations. One of them, surprise surprise, being that they were prohibited from broadcasting dramatized political propaganda. However, they were also given the power to establish radio stations and buy out private ones in order to create a radio network across the country.

On July 1st, 1948, the CBC bought Winnipeg’s CTV radio station from MTS, and began broadcasting on Sept. 3rd.

CBC’s expansion across the country was highly successful: by 1938, they had an estimated reach of 79% of the Canadian population, compared an only 49% reach during the years of the CRBC.

The CBC won over Canadians, not only by importing popular American programming, but by employing Canadian talent: musicians, actors, singers, and writers.

Today, the significance of the CBC is much the same. It serves an important cultural role in distributing Canadian talent across Canada and around the world, while at the same time acting as a national public radio system that connects Canadians from coast to coast on issues that matter to them.