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The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation ('''CBC'''), a Canadian Crown Corporation , is the country’s national public Radio and Television broadcaster. In French , it is called '''''la Société Radio-Canada''''' ('''Radio-Canada''' or '''SRC'''). The umbrella corporate brand is '''CBC/Radio-Canada'''. The CBC is the oldest broadcasting service in Canada , first established in its present form on November 2 , 1936 . Radio services include CBC Radio One , CBC Radio 2 , '' La Première Chaîne '', '' Espace Musique '' and the international radio service Radio Canada International . Television operations include CBC Television , '' Télévision De Radio-Canada '', CBC Newsworld , ''le Réseau De L'information '', Documentary Channel and CBC Country Canada . The CBC operates services for the Canadian Arctic under the names CBC North and '' Radio Nord Québec ''. The CBC also operates digital audio service Galaxie and two main websites, one in either official language; it owns 40% of Satellite Radio broadcaster Sirius Canada , which airs additional CBC services including CBC Radio 3 and '' Bande à Part ''. CBC/Radio-Canada offers programming in English, French and eight Aboriginal languages, in nine languages on its international radio service, Radio Canada International , and in eight languages on its Web-based radio service RCI viva, a service for recent and aspiring immigrants to Canada. HISTORY See Also: Timeline of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 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. 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 Station s 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 became a full Crown Corporation and gained its present name. For the next few decades, the CBC was responsible for all broadcasting innovation in Canada. It introduced FM Radio to Canada in 1946. 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 operated two English-language AM radio 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 re-branded slightly in 2007 as CBC Radio 2 .) On July 1 , 1958 , CBC’s television signal was extended from coast to coast. 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.” Since the 1970s, the CBC has not maintained its dominance in broadcasting it formerly had, but it still plays an important role. Today, the CBC operates several Radio , Terrestrial Television and Cable Television networks, in both English and French , as well as a number of Aboriginal languages in the North. The CBC’s cultural influence, like that of many public broadcasters, has waned in recent decades. This is partly due to severe budget cuts by the Canadian federal government, which began in the late 1980s and levelled off in the late 1990s. It is also due to industry-wide fragmentation of TV audiences (the decline of network TV generally, due to the rise in specialty channel viewership, as well as the increase of non-TV entertainment options such as videogames, the Internet, etc.). Private networks in Canada face the same competition, but their viewership has declined less than that of CBC Television. In English Canada, the decline in CBC viewership can be partly attributed to the fact that private TV networks primarily rebroadcast American programming with substituted Canadian advertising. American shows are very popular among English Canadians and often attract much higher audiences than the made-in-Canada programming that is a CBC specialty. Viewership on the CBC’s French TV network has also declined, mostly because of stiff competition from private French-language networks. Audience fragmentation is another issue – French Canadian s prefer home-grown television programming, a vibrant Quebec star system is in place, and little American or foreign content airs on French-language networks, public or private. On the other hand, the CBC’s French-language Radio channel is sometimes the top- Rated network. In the case of breaking news, including Federal Elections , the CBC may still hold a slight edge. For instance, after Election Night 2006 , CBC Television took out full-page newspaper ads claiming that 2.2 million Canadians watched their coverage, more than any other broadcaster. However, in similar ads, CTV also claimed to be number one, stating there was a CBC audience of only 1.2 million. In both cases, the methodologies were not clear from the ads, such as whether simulcasts on one or both of the networks’ news channels (Newsworld for CBC, Newsnet for CTV) were counted. Frontier Coverage Package Starting in 1967 and continuing until the mid-1970s, the CBC provided limited television service to remote and northern communities. Transmitters were built in a few locations and carried a four-hour selection of black-and-white videotaped programs each day. The tapes were flown into communities to be shown, then transported to other communities, often by the "bicycle" method used in Television Syndication . Larger communities underwent only a one-week transportation delay, while smaller communities waited up to a month to receive tapes. The first FCP station was started in Yellowknife in 1967, the second in Whitehorse in 1968. Additional stations were added from 1969 to 1972. Most stations were fitted for the Anik satellite signal during 1973, carrying 12 hours of colour programming. Broadcasts were geared to either the Atlantic time zone (UTC-4 or 3) or the Pacific time zone (UTC-8 or 7) even though the audience resided in communities in time zones varying from UTC-5 to UTC-8. Some of these stations used non-CBC callsigns such as CFWH-TV in Whitehorse, while some others used the standard CB_T callsign. The CB_T stations now have different CB- callsigns, many beginning with CBE-. It would be many years before TV programs originated in the north, starting with one half-hour per week in the 1980s with ''Focus North'' and graduating to a daily half-hour newscast, ''Northbeat'', in the late 1990s. Logos |
Image:CBC Logo 1966-1974svg<span Style |
"font-size: 90% line-height: 125%">This “Butterfly” logo was designed for the CBC by Hubert Tison in 1966 to mark the network’s progressing transition from black-and-white to colour television (much in the manner of the American NBC Television Network’s peacock symbol) It was used at the beginning of programs broadcast in colour, and was used until all CBC TV programs had successfully switched to colour, at which point it was replaced with “the gem” (see to the right)</span> |
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Image:CBC Logo 1974-1986svg<span Style |
"font-size: 90% line-height: 125%">This logo, officially known internally as “the gem” but nicknamed the “exploding pizza,” was designed for the CBC by graphic artist Burton Kramer in 1974, and it is the most widely recognized symbol of the corporation The appearance of this logo marked the arrival of full-colour network television service The large shape in the middle is the letter C, which stands for Canada , and the radiating parts of the C symbolize broadcasting</span> |
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