Pax Canadensis

CBC and Radio Canada International Shortwave Service - History

Excerpts from: Canada Handbook 1954; Ministry of Trade and Commerce; Canada.

CBC Television

“In its first year on the air, CBC television has developed a program schedule covering the wide range of entertainment achieved in its sound broadcasting. These programs have included weekly drama series, leading sports events such as NHL hockey and the Grey Cup football final, special children’s series, news variety, discussions, and many other types. Most Canadian productions have been “live” from studios at Toronto or Montreal, and some programs have been fed directly from United States networks via the microwave relay. 

“A wide selection of film features has also been offered. In its first year of service, CBC television realized several notable “firsts” including the first TV production of a George Bernard Shaw play (Candida) permitted in North America and the first presentation in North America of films of the Coronation. 

[The films came over on an Air Force plane so Canadians would see the Coronation of Elizabeth II before the American TV networks broadcast their own Coronation productions - cross-border TV via “rabbit ears” was popular.]

Radio Canada International

“Altogether the shortwave broadcasts of the International Service are listened to in some 30 countries. The programs are broadcast in 16 languages: English French, German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Slovak, Polish, Russian and Ukrainian. Countries that have poor reception because of geographical reasons, like Austria and Greece, receive transcribed programs. The staffs of the various language sections prepare the programs, which are then edited, produced in the studios and sent out over the air. The English language section has the additional responsibility of providing the Canadian Forces abroad with daily broadcasts.” 

Quand j'étais au Manitoba
En '40 comme soldat
Forcément, on s'entraînait
Seulement rien qu'en anglais
Mais le soir à la cantine
Devant une petite bière
Si on parlait français, câline
Ça faisait toute une affaire

Why Put Together this Serial about Radio Canada International?

Above: “The radio network set up by Sir Henry Thornton, CNR President, to entertain passenger train travellers provided the basis for the creation of CBC in the 1930s.”

Canada’s international shortwave broadcasting service operated for 67 years -until June of 2012. Now it is “a website” with an unclear future: Perhaps it will provide regular streaming audio programs, or perhaps it will provide Canadian podcasts to international listeners in the same variety of languages as in the recent past.

Like CBC Radio, Radio Canada International (RCI) has a very loyal following.

With the end of shortwave wireless broadcasting, listeners in countries which “edit” and monitor the internet will no longer have relatively free access to RCI programming in the future.

China - whom our current government is eagerly courting as a big bitumen sands producing partner - will now stand between RCI internet programs and its citizens through “The Great Firewall of China”.

In spite of what you may hear in the euphoric techie press, the reality is that great expanses of humanity still have no internet access, and still rely on shortwave broadcasts for accurate and reliable information from abroad. Canada has been proud to participate in this work in the past.

If you listen to RCI’s program “Maple Leaf Mailbag” in its few surviving podcasts, you will quickly be able to imagine how much Canada’s shortwave presence is missed, now that the transmitters are shut down.

I happen to have purchased a collection of “Canada Yearbooks” which the Government of Canada issued through the 20th Century to document and advertise its accomplishments. 

For decades the Governments were very proud of the CBC and RCI as key elements of our national identity. It is interesting to see subtleties in how the two organizations are presented from year to year. It is interesting to see how they grew, year by year.

RCI has been cut little by little, year by year. Still, a few proud professional broadcasters have kept its shrinking Montreal studios operating. Sackville NB engineers and technologists did keep its historic aerials powered up until last weekend.

Some stuff hangs around forever on the internet. It is my hope that my transcriptions of the these historic accounts, and the photographs of RCI at work (sweetened with just a little CBC history for its own fans) will properly honour RCI’s broadcast professionals and listeners - whatever may happen in the future.

CBC and Radio Canada International Shortwave Service - History

Excerpts from: Canada Handbook 1952; Ministry of Trade and Commerce; Canada.

Television

Shortages of materials have delayed completion of CBC television centres being built at Montreal and Toronto, and the first television broadcasts will not be on the air until sometime in 1952. Channels 2 and 5 have been assigned to the CBC at Montreal, where the Corporation ultimately will operate two stations (English and French), and Channel 9 at Toronto where one station will be operated. The Montreal television studios are housed in an addition to the Radio Canada Building and the transmitter is being erected on top of Mount Royal in the heart of the city. The transmitter for Toronto will be incorporated with the studio building at the Toronto location, with a 500 foot tower adjacent to it. A contract has been let for the provision of microwave relay links between Buffalo USA and Toronto, and Toronto and Montreal.

International Service

The International Service is operated by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on behalf of the Government of Canada. Its finances are provided wholly by a parliamentary appropriation; it uses none of the revenue of the CBC designated for its service to Canadian listeners. The policies of the International Service are formulated through consultation with the Department of External Affairs and with an Advisory Committee on which are represented the Department of External Affairs, the Department of Trade and Commerce, the Privy Council, the National Film Board and the CBC.

Since its inception in February 1945, the CBC International Service has so expanded that it programs are now heard abroad in fourteen languages. The latest language to be added, in February 1951, was Russian; the Voice of Canada Russian language programs are timed to coincide with those of the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Voice of America.

A monthly program schedule designed to provide factual information about Canada is distributed free to listeners upon request. Two editions are currently published - one for Europe and one for Latin America and the Caribbean. Their combined circulation has passed the 100,000 mark.

CBC and Radio Canada International Shortwave Service - History

Excerpts from: Canada Handbook 1950; Ministry of Trade and Commerce; Canada.

“With the addition of four stations of the former Broadcasting Corporation of Newfoundland, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation now operates 18 standard band stations (seven of them with a power of 50,000 watts), five FM transmitters and 19 low power relay stations. The latter are satellite [i.e. ‘peripheral’ - not fed by space satellite way back then] transmitters servicing communities not able to receive an adequate signal from a Canadian station, and not large enough to support their own local station. The publicly owned stations, supplemented by privately owned affiliates, make CBC network service available to over 90 percent of Canada’s population.

“A cardinal rule of CBC program planning is that program schedules should include radio fare to meet all tastes. Canadian talent is used to the fullest possible extent. Over 80 percent of all programs carried on CBC networks are Canadian in origin. The balance consists of programs which the CBC carefully chooses from other countries on the basis of listeners’ preferences and needs. These programs are mostly of types not available within Canada and are chosen with the overall program balance picture in mind.

CBC International Service

“In operating the International Service, the CBC in effect acts as agent for the Government. Funds are voted specifically by Parliament for the purpose of maintaining this service and none of the revenues of the CBC for service to Canadian listeners are used [i.e. the annual $2.50 listener licence]. The policies of the International Service are laid down after consultation with the Department of External Affairs, and there is an Advisory Committee composed of representatives of the Corporation, of the Department of External Affairs and of the Department of Trade and Commerce.

“Operations during the year ended March 31 1949 involved approximately 4800 hours of broadcasting including news, talks, music, interviews with foreign nationals visiting Canada as well as with Canadians who speak foreign languages, actualities, dramas, documentaries, international conference reports and commentaries, trade news and reviews, special programs in honour of national holidays, and periods when CBC International Service facilities were loaned without charge to the United Nations Radio Division for transmission of the material direct from Lake Success, New York.”

CBC and Radio Canada International Service - History

from: Canada Handbook 1948; Ministry of Trade and Commerce; Canada.

“On February 9 1932, the Judicial Committee of the Imperial Privy Council, to whom the matter had been reported, ruled that the control and regulation of radio-communication rested within the jurisdiction of the Dominion Parliament.

…

“The nucleus of a nationally owned system was secured in 1933 on the acquisition and operation by the Commission of three stations of the Canadian National Railways at Moncton, Ottawa and Vancouver [A note on the CNR: These stations had provided music, news and other content to Canadian National Railways passenger trains for the entertainment of passengers … in special headphone-equipped radio lounge areas of the moving passenger cars].

…

“At April 7 1947 there were operating in Canada 33 shortwave broadcasting stations, of which 25 were Canadian Broadcasting Corporation stations and eight privately owned stations.

“Shortwave receiving stations are maintained at Dartmouth NS, at Ottawa and Toronto, mainly for the reception of British Broadcasting Corporation transmissions. In order to improve reception from Australia and points in the Pacific area, a new shortwave receiving station is being built at Point Grey, near Vancouver. 

CBC International Service

“Since its inception in February 1945, the CBC International Service has expanded until now the Voice of Canada is heard abroad in ten languages. Built and operated on behalf of the Canadian Government, the transmitters of the International Service, located near Sackville NB, send out the strongest signal heard in Europe from North America. During the meetings of the General Assembly in New York, the United Nations continued to use the CBC transmitters for 90 minutes daily, directing reports to Czechoslovakia, Russia, Turkey, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Poland, France, Greece and Egypt. 

“Operations during the fiscal year ended March 31 1947 involved 3275 hours of broadcasting, made up of more than 10,000 program periods. In addition to areas already served, it is planned to begin regular transmissions to South Africa in the near future.”

#rci #cbc #cdnhistory

Replacing a rectifier tube in the transmitter station.

Radio Canada International Shortwave 1946-2012

Canada - National Radio - 1946

from: Canada Yearbook 1946; Department of Trade and Commerce, Canada.

“The control of national broadcasting is vested in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which succeeded the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission in November 1936. The Corporation operates under the Canadian Broadcasting Act 1936 by which it is given regulatory powers over all broadcasting stations in Canada. 

“The Board of Governors of the CBC consists of nine members, appointed for three years, in rotation, to act as ‘trustees of the national interest in broadcasting’. They are responsible for the policies of the Corporation, and for guaranteeing to the public that broadcasting will be administered in a non-partisan and business-like manner. The CBC is responsible to Parliament through a Minister of the Cabinet.”

AND … Radio Canada International shortwave broadcasting was shut down yesterday. It operated at half the annual cost of Stephen Harper’s personal protection detail. Since the morning of June 23 (today), their website has been shut down as well.

#rci #cbc #cdnhistory

“The shortwave transmitter building near Sackville NB housing in its million cubic feet two 50 kilowatt shortwave transmitters and their associated equipment.”

Radio Canada International Shortwave 1946-2012

Overseas Technical Operations - 1946

from: Canada Yearbook 1946; Department of Trade and Commerce, Canada.

“During 1944 and 1945 the CBC continued to operate four mobile units overseas with a staff of six engineers. Two of these units accompanied the Canadian Forces in the invasion of Normandy, and a unit which had been in Italy accompanied the Canadian Forces to the northern European theatre early in 1945. Some assistance was also given at the request of the Department of National Defence in the matter of establishing suitable camp listening facilities in the United Kingdom and Europe, so that programs broadcast from the CBC International Service shortwave transmitters at Sackville, NB, could be readily received.

“Two CBC engineers have been seconded to this service to assist in the establishment of camp broadcasting facilities in the United Kingdom and in Europe, these facilities to be employed in rehabilitation camps and in areas where Canadian Forces of occupation are located.

“The shortwave project at Sackville commenced experimental operations in December 1944 and formal operations in February 1945. The service at the outset was limited to Europe for serving the Canadian Forces abroad but by September 1945, this service had been extended in other directions, including South Africa, South America, New Zealand and Central America.

“In all, at Sackville, there are two 50,000 watt transmitters and twenty-two antennae. Five are directed to Europe, with five in the reverse direction to South America and New Zealand. Three are directed to South America, three to South Africa and three to Australia.

“Reports received from the BBC, and from other observers throughout Europe, have indicated that the service generally from Sackville is highly satisfactory and that the CBC, through its Sackville station, is providing the strongest signal in Europe from the American Continent. Good reports are also being received from New Zealand, South America and South Africa.”

#rci #cbc #cdnhistory

Radio Canada International Shortwave 1946-2012

“Canada’s Short-Wave Transmitting Facilities - the most modern in North America. Steel towers, ranging up to 380 feet in height hold aloft the unique antennae system. These are built to withstand a 120 mile an hour gale.”

from: Canada Yearbook 1946; Department of Trade and Commerce, Canada.

“With the opening of this shortwave international service on February 25, 1945, Canada embarked on a program designed to develop good relationships by means of the radio with the countries of the world. The studios are in Montreal from where programs in five languages are sent by telephone wires to the transmitters near Sackville, NB, there to be broadcast from the complicated web of steel and cable forming the antennae system to listeners in Europe. This service has now been extended in other directions including South Africa, South America, New Zealand and Central America.”