Canadian broadcasting

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

Main themes in the history include the development of the engineering technology; the construction of stations and the building of networks; the widespread purchase and use of radio and television sets by the public; debates regarding state versus private ownership of stations; financing of the broadcast media through the government, licence fees, and advertising; the changing content of the programming; the impact of the programming on Canadian identity; the media's influence on shaping audience responses to music, sports and politics; the role of the Québec government; Francophone versus Anglophone cultural tastes; the role of other ethnic groups and First Nations; fears of American cultural imperialism via the airwaves; and the impact of the Internet and smartphones on traditional broadcasting media.

American stations could easily be received in the heavily populated parts of Canada.

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 first used the transmitter and call letters of the Canadian Independent Telephone Company's experimental station 9AH (later CKCE) on March 19, 1922, with a series of broadcasts of concerts

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.

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