Nov.3,10,17,24, Dec. 1,1986 Copyright © 1986 The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation All rights reserved Under no circumstances may this transcript or matters contained herein be reproduced or otherwise used for any purpose beyond the private use of the recipient (other than for newspaper coverage, purposes of reference, discussion, and review) without the prior written consent ofCBC Transcripts. Turning Points in Public Broadcasting: The CBC at 50 Lister Sinclair written and presented by David Cayley. Good evening, I'm Lister Sinclair. Tonight on Ideas, we Song celebrate the 50th anniversary of the CBC with a new series This is the start of a great revolution about public broadcasting in Canada. Which way will it go? I'm an inventor of communications Harry Boyle So let's say hello ... It began with a kind of dream. David Cayley Song Christmas Eve 1906. Canadian inventor Reginald Aubrey Words without wires Fessenden was making the first public radio broadcast. He Celestial choirs played "Oh, Holy Night," and read the Christmas story. This song travels far Radio operators on United Fruit Company banana boats Radio gave us lying off Boston, amazed, heard Fessenden's broadcast and The voices that told us wrote to tell him so. Fessenden was a brilliant inventor, but a The way that things are poor businessman. He eventually lost his patents to Marconi. And when North America's first radio station went Announcer on the air in Montreal, it was owned by the Italian, not the The Canadian Radio Commission is calling Canada, calling Canadian. That station was WXA, later CFCF, and its first their national network and associated networks in the regularly scheduled broadcast was on May 21,1920. A United States. glittering crowd gathered for the occasion in the Chateau Laurier. The prime minister, Sir Robert Borden, was there. Song So was Mackenzie King. And through the air, they heard, Canada calling A for the first time, music. long, long way Canada calling WXA and the stations that followed it were not the slick What does it say? commercial 'operations we know today. Radio still belonged to the amateur and the inventor, and the stations were Graham Spry usually small, low power, local operations, like the one built The boys my age around Huron Street in Toronto were in Wing ham, Ontario by Doc Cruickshank. fascinated by the wireless, and we'd pretend, trying to talk through a hose was wireless. It was the idea of Doc Cruickshank communication, the taste for communication was in my One tube was all I had in this transmitter. There were no being in some way. It was something in the age, worldwide receivers available, so I had to make them if I was going to communication. It was a fascinating time to be a youngman. sell them. I worked in the foundry for ten hours a day, seven days a week, by the way, and I ran the machine in the picture show for about four hours a night. And there was one hour Lister Sinclair between 7 and 8 o'clock that I had nothing to do. That's when Tonight, the first of five special programs about public I sold radios. The first broadcast we ever did was a fellow broadcasting in Canada in which we'll highlight significant playing the accordion, and on Sunday we always did a moments in the life of the CBC and try to see what these church service from one of the churches. It meant at that time moments can tell us about the present and the future. Our we had to connect up all the churches in town with a story begins early in the century, when broadcasting itself telephone line, you see. And we had the telephone line, we brought a great lot of wire and strung it on top of buildings was just beginning, a time when no one really knew what and everything else from the studio over to one of the the new technological magic could do, or should do, for churches and broadcast it. We did that for years before society. The United States had a system of private anybody thought there was any other way of doing it. We commercial radio. American networks had affiliates and didn't know that you had to have a licence for broadcasting. audiences in Canada. Britain had a publicly owned system. Somebody tipped me off that I had to have a licence, and by Canada was facing a choice. A royal commission in the late golly, I enquired around and sure enough, I had to have a licence. It was very simple to get it. All I did was write a 1920s had recommended public ownership, but its reports letter, and I could get a licence for ten dollars, I think, in might have gone the way of many other royal commission those days. reports, had it not been for the work of a small and dedicated band of visionaries who called themselves the Radio Lister Sinclair League. Tonight's program is their story and the story of the Stations were often started as a way of selling radio sets, invention they wanted used for the common good. It's Turning Points in Public Broadcasting: The CBC at 50 primitive affairs involving crystals and an antenna called a A program such as Amos 'n' Andy was enormous popular. cat's whisker. That was why A.A. Murphy started his And so you had stations like CFCF in Montreal, CKGW in station, the first in Saskatoon. Toronto, being pushed tremendously by listeners to get these programs onto their stations. So you had owners like R.W. A.A. Murphy Ashcroft of CKGW having to make a decision. Either you About 1922, I think it was, the latter part of the year, some affiliate with an American network on a limited basis and red- headed fella from eastern Canada took a swing through bring in the program on your station, or you run the risk of a the west, and he came into our place of business and loaded Canadian turning to an American station and being held to us up with a lot of cat whiskers and horns and whatnot. And the' American station. my partner bought all this stuff, and when I came in, he told me about it and I said well, what are we going to do with it? David Cayley I guess we'll have to have a radio station if we're going to Canadian networks were slower to develop. The first sell that kind of stuff, I said. There was a station in Regina at program heard nationally was on Dominion Day in 1927. that time, but it wasn't very powerful, that is CKCK was in The occasion was Canada's Diamond Jubilee, and a network operation then. So I took a trip to Calgary, saw Bill Grant, of stations established by the Canadian National Railways made a deal with him and he built me a 50 watt station, so to carried the festivities live from Parliament Hill. It began speak, brought it up under his arm to Saskatoon. with a carillon recital. Engineer Jack Carlyle was part of the recording team. David Cayley Radio at first was a toy. Receivers were often homemade. Jack Carlyle Reception was extraordinary because the radio spectrum I remember going up in that tower and the clock struck, just was still uncluttered. A Regina station with only 500 watts when I got near the bells. And of course, it was carbon mikes of power was heard regularly in Ontario and in British in those days, and you couldn't put it on the ground and pick Columbia, occasionally as far away as Australia. The up the sound. So Charlie Findlay, the chief engineer, he miracle of receiving radio signals at all redeemed even the climbed out among the gargoyles, you know, the gargoyles most banal of programs. But by the mid-'20s, things quickly on the clock and the Peace Tower. He climbed up and sat out changed. The rapidly expanding American networks had there for an hour with the microphone in his hand. He was begun reaching into Canada, and a lot of Canadians were never allowed to do it again, of course. entranced by what they heard. David Cayley Announcer Later in the day, Mackenzie King addressed the crowd. General Mills new Bisquick presents Joan Braine in Graham Spry recalls how impressed the prime minister was "Valiant Lady," a story of a brave woman and her brilliant with the national radio hookup. but unstable husband, the story of her struggle to keep his feet planted firmly upon the pathway to success. Mackenzie King Ladies and gentleman, on behalf of all us who are in the Amos capital of Ottawa, may I say what a great pleasure it is to Andy, listen, the man himselfs about to say it. welcome to the city today on this historic occasion ... Andy Graham Spry Y~ah, let's everybody listen. I remember the day very vividly. The whole of Parliament Hill was crowded with people, and they were interested, Announcer fascinated by this national hookup. Here were the Rinso, the new Rinso, with ... soleum, brings you the Amos governor-general, a great actress, and the prime minister of 'n' Andy Show. Yes, sir, Rinso, the soap that contains Canada, standing in Ottawa and speaking to everybody in soleum, the sunlight ingredient, brings you a full half-hour Canada who had a radio and who wanted to listen. Now, this of entertainment with the Jubilaires, Jeff Alexander's made an enormous impression on the press, and of course on orchestra and chorus, and radio's all-time favourites, Amos the politicians, and particularly on Mackenzie King.