page_title: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation / History
context_page_description: The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian federal Crown corporation that serves as the national public broadcaster for both radio and television. The English- and French-language service units of the corporation are commonly known as CBC and Radio-Canada, respectively.
  Although some local stations in Canada predate the CBC's founding, CBC is the oldest existing broadcasting network in Canada. The CBC was established on November 2, 1936. The CBC operates four terrestrial radio networks: The English-Language CBC Radio One and CBC Music, and the French-Language Ici Radio-Canada Première and Ici Musique. The CBC also operates two terrestrial television networks, the English-Language CBC Television and the French-Language Ici Radio-Canada Télé, along with the satellite/cable networks CBC News Network, Ici RDI, Ici Explora, Documentary Channel, and Ici ARTV. The CBC operates services for the Canadian Arctic under the names CBC North and Radio-Canada Nord.
context_section_description: In 1929, the Aird Commission on public broadcasting recommended the creation of a national radio broadcast network. A major concern was the growing influence of American radio broadcasting as U.S.-based networks began to expand into Canada.
  Meanwhile, Canadian National Railways was making a radio network to keep its passengers entertained and give it an advantage over its rival, CP. This, the CNR Radio, is the forerunner of the CBC. Graham Spry and Alan Plaunt lobbied intensely for the project on behalf of the Canadian Radio League. In 1932 the government of R. B. Bennett established the CBC's predecessor, the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (CRBC).
  The CRBC took over a network of radio stations formerly set up by a federal Crown corporation, the Canadian National Railway. The network was used to broadcast programming to riders aboard its passenger trains, with coverage primarily in central and eastern Canada. On November 2, 1936, the CRBC was reorganized under its present name. While the CRBC was a state-owned company, the CBC was a Crown corporation on the model of the British Broadcasting Corporation, which had been reformed from a private company into a statutory corporation in 1927.  Leonard Brockington was the CBC's first chairman.
  For the next few decades, the CBC was responsible for all broadcasting innovation in Canada.  This was in part because, until 1958, it was not only a broadcaster, but the chief regulator of Canadian broadcasting. It used this dual role to snap up most of the clear-channel licences in Canada.  It began a separate French-language radio network in 1937. It introduced FM radio to Canada in 1946, though a distinct FM service wasn't launched until 1960.
  Television broadcasts from the CBC began on September 6, 1952, with the opening of a station in Montreal, Quebec (CBFT), and a station in Toronto, Ontario (CBLT) opening two days later. The CBC's first privately owned affiliate television station, CKSO in Sudbury, Ontario, launched in October 1953. (At the time, all private stations were expected to affiliate with the CBC, a condition that relaxed in 1960–61 with the launch of CTV.)
  From 1944 to 1962, the CBC split its English-language radio network into two services known as the Trans-Canada Network and the Dominion Network. The latter, carrying lighter programs including American radio shows, was dissolved in 1962, while the former became known as CBC Radio. (In the late 1990s, CBC Radio was rebranded as CBC Radio One and CBC Stereo as CBC Radio Two. The latter was rebranded slightly in 2007 as CBC Radio 2.)
  On July 1, 1958, CBC's television signal was extended from coast to coast. The first Canadian television show shot in colour was the CBC's own The Forest Rangers in 1963. Colour television broadcasts began on July 1, 1966, and full-colour service began in 1974. In 1978, CBC became the first broadcaster in the world to use an orbiting satellite for television service, linking Canada "from east to west to north". The mission of CBC is contribution to the "moral economy of the nation".
caption: CBC's English-language master control point, the Canadian Broadcasting Centre, in Toronto
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