‘WHAT DO YOU EXPECT OF THIS FRIEND?’

Abstract

In Canada during the pre-television era, the perception of radio as an intimate medium profoundly affected the way people ordered their listening, production, performance and discussion of programming. With evidence drawn primarily from Canadian archival sources, this paper contends that radio's perceived intimacy deeply troubled those who considered themselves responsible for the physical and cultural welfare of listeners, and that Canada's early broadcasting experience provided a particularly good example of how worry could become action. Though thinking about intimacy had helped broadcasters before the mid-1930s to understand the function of radio in relation to other media, it also led the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) after its formation in 1936 to scrutinize and control commercial and unsponsored programming, advertising and public service messages alike. The CBC's self-assigned stewardship role – a reaction to plentiful and popular American programming and an emulation of the British Broadcasting Corporation and European services – pushed it toward protecting children and other listeners thought to be gullible or sensitive from programmes that abused the intimate relationship by stepping beyond established boundaries of taste or threatening the Corporation's ‘civilizing’ role.

Keywords:

• radio
• Canada
• intimacy
• listener
• taste
• public
• Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Notes

1. M.J. Caveney, ‘New Voices in the Wilderness’, cited in Peter Edidin, ‘Confounding Machines: How the Future Looked’, New York Times 28 Aug. 2005: 12.

2. ‘Policy of the Corporation’, n.d. [1939], 6. Library Archives Canada (hereafter LAC), Records of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (hereafter CBC), Vol. 287, file 14-1-5, Part 1, Reports & Memoranda for Parliamentary Committee 1939.

3. David Hendy sees radio as closely linked to evolving standards in film, stage and television in ‘Bad Language and BBC Radio Four in the 1960s and 1970s’, Twentieth Century British History 17.1 (2006): 74–102. Jason Jacobs’ The Intimate Screen: Early British Television Drama (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), while arguing that television exceeded radio and film in intimacy, stresses the centrality of a personal connection to the audience; see especially pp. 28–31. See also Johnson (Unseen Voice).

4. See Steve Craig, ‘“The More they Listen, the More they Buy”: Radio and the Modernizing of Rural America’, Agricultural History 80.1 (2006): 1–16. Derek Vaillant, ‘“Your Voice Came in Last Night … But I Thought it Sounded a Little Scared”: Rural Radio Listening and “Talking Back” During the Progressive Era in Wisconsin, 1920–1932’, in Michele Hilmes and Jason Loviglio, eds, Radio Reader: Essays in the Cultural History of Radio (London: Routledge, 2002); Steve Craig, ‘“The Farmer's Friend”: Radio Comes to Rural America, 1920–1927’, Journal of Radio Studies 8.2 (2001): 330–46; Casey Man Kong Lum, ‘An Intimate Voice from Afar: A Brief History of New York's Chinese-Language Wireless Radio’, Journal of Radio Studies 2 (2000): 355–72; Susan J. Douglas, Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination (New York: Times/Random House, 1999); Michele Hilmes, Radio Voices: American Broadcasting, 1922–1952 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997); Mary Vipond, Listening In: The First Decade of Canadian Broadcasting, 1922–1932 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1992).

5. W.D. Robb, ‘Radio’, broadcast 25 July 1924, CFCA Toronto. LAC, E.A. Weir Papers, MG 30 D 67, Vol. 5, file 12, W.D. Robb.

6. ‘Radio Travels Rapidly but Plodding Sun Wins’, n.d. [1928]. LAC, E.A. Weir Papers, MG 30 D 67, Vol. 19, file 3, C.N.R. – Radio – Programming Miscellaneous.

7. Thomas Archer, ‘Speaking as a Listener’, broadcast 9 July 1948, CBC Trans-Canada Network, 1. LAC, CBC, Vol. 193, file 11-18-11-6 (part 1), PG8 – Speaking as a Listener.

8. Gladstone Murray to Phillip N. Morris, 2 Dec. 1937. LAC, CBC, Vol. 32A, file 1-18 (part 2), Broadcasting Regulations.

9. CNR Press Release, 27 Sept. 1930, 4. LAC, E.A. Weir Papers, MG 30 D 67, Vol. 19, file 1, C.N.R. – Radio – Miscellaneous Speeches & Articles. See also David Bathrick, ‘Making a National Family with the Radio: The Nazi Wunschkonzert’, Modernism/Modernity 4.1 (1997): 115–27.

10. L.W. Brockington, ‘Chatting with the Listener’, broadcast 3 Feb. 1938. Rare Books and Special Collections, University of British Columbia, Alan B. Plaunt Papers, Box 17, file 5.

11. Charlotte Whitton to Murray, 12 Mar. 1941. LAC, CBC, Vol. 144, file 9–8 (part 1), Station Relations, Radio Regulations – Matters of Public Health. On the idea of the electronic hearth as later developed by Marshall McLuhan, see Cecelia Tichi, Electronic Hearth: Creating an American Television Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), especially pp. 42–61.

12. Graham McInnes, ‘Speaking as a Listener’, broadcast 16 July 1948, CBC Trans-Canada Network, 1. LAC, CBC, Vol. 193, file 11-18-11-6 (part 1), PG8 – Speaking as a Listener.

13. A.D. Dunton, ‘Radio 1946’, broadcast 2 Oct. 1946. BBC Written Archives Centre, E1/500/2, Countries: Canada, CBC Programmes, file 2, M-Z, 1939–49.

14. Dr James R. Angell, ‘Programming in the Public Interest’, address to the National Association of Broadcasters Convention, Chicago, 28 Apr. 1943. LAC, E.A. Weir Papers, MG 30 D 67, Vol. 16, file 6, C.B.C. Talks & Articles.

15. Press kit for ‘Find Your Fortune’, 1948. LAC, CBC, Acc. 86-87/031, Box 153, Find Your Fortune.

16. Albert E.S. Whittaker to Chairman of CBC Board of Governors, 10 Nov. 1951. LAC, CBC, Acc. 86-87/031, Box 198, file 18-16R-10 to W-9. Jason Loviglio addresses the idea of personification in his discussion of Roosevelt's addresses. Loviglio, Radio's Intimate Public, 2–5.

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18. Graham McInnes, ‘Speaking as a Listener’, broadcast 4 June 1948, CBC Trans-Canada Network, 3. LAC, CBC, Vol. 193, file 11-18-11-6 (part 1), PG8 – Speaking as a Listener.

19. Ted Allan to Robert Weaver, 13 June 1949. LAC, Ted Allan Papers, MG 30 D 388, Vol. 20, file 2, Correspondence 1949. Wendell J. Munn to Ted Allan, 22 July 1949. LAC, Ted Allan Papers, MG 30 D 388, Vol. 20, file 1, Correspondence 1949.

20. Clara Virginia Barton, ‘The Romance of Radio’, Canadian National Railways Magazine, Oct. 1925: 31. LAC, E.A. Weir Papers, MG 30 D 67, Vol. 18, file 7, C.N.R. – Canadian National Railways Magazine – Articles on Radio 1922–32.

21. [Gladstone Murray], ‘Broadcasting the Royal Tour’ (Synopsis of the Remarks of the General Manager), Meeting of Commentators, CBC Headquarters, Ottawa, 11 May 1939. Rare Books and Special Collections, University of British Columbia, Alan B. Plaunt Papers, Box 17, file 4.

22. Sweet Hour of Prayer letterhead. LAC, Winston Curry Papers, MG 30 C 185, Vol. 1, file 1, Correspondence 1942–70.

23. Canadian Catholic Conference, ‘Brief submitted to the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences’, Mar. 1950, 9. LAC, CBC, Vol. 306, file 14-2-2, part 23.

24. Gladstone Murray, ‘National Radio in Canada’, 25 July 1933. LAC, Gladstone Murray Papers, MG 30 E186, Vol. 1, Report on Canadian Broadcasting, 1933.

25. Gladstone Murray, ‘Chatting with the Listener’, broadcast 22 Dec. 1936, CBC Trans-Canada Network. LAC, Graham Spry Papers, MG 30 D 297, Vol. 108, file 24, Clippings and commentary on the League, 1930s.

26. Spot announcement for broadcast over station CKCK Regina, approved by Station Relations Division, 29 Jan. 1944. LAC, CBC, Vol. 144, file 9-8 (part 2), Station Relations, Radio Regulations – Matters of Public Health.

27. Gladstone Murray to Felix J. Lafferty, 9 Nov. 1937. LAC, CBC, Vol. 144, file 9–8 (part 1), Station Relations, Radio Regulations – Matters of Public Health.

28. Minutes, CBC Board of Governors, 8 Sept. 1937. LAC, CBC, Vol. 615, microfilm reel T-3041. My italics.

29. See Loviglio, Radio's Intimate Public for a more complete and nuanced discussion of this idea.

30. ‘CBC General Manager Sets New Standard for Radio Advertising’, n.d. [Nov. 1942]. LAC, CBC, Vol. 142, file 9-5-1 (part 1), Station Relations, Radio Regulations – Food and Drugs.

31. J.R. Radford to Manson, teletype, 12 Dec. 1940. LAC, CBC, Vol. 144, file 9-8 (part 1), Station Relations, Radio Regulations – Matters of Public Health.

32. ‘Price Mention Regulation’, 1939, 1. LAC, CBC, Vol. 32A, file 1–18 (part 2), Broadcasting Regulations.

33. ‘Points of View on Price Mention’, broadcast 7 Dec. 1948, CBC Trans-Canada Network. LAC, CBC, Vol. 155, file 9–35 (part 5). Station Relations – Radio Regulations, Price Mention. A strong showing from consumer groups in the late wartime and early post-war period probably aided these changes. On the movement, see Magda Fahrni, ‘Counting the Costs of Living: Gender, Citizenship, and a Politics of Prices in 1940s Montreal’, Canadian Historical Review 83.4 (Dec. 2002): 484–504.

34. ‘Policy of the Corporation’, n.d. [1939]. LAC, CBC, Vol. 287, file 14-1-5, Part 1, Reports & Memoranda for Parliamentary Committee 1939.

35. George Taggart to Ira Dilworth, 2 Oct. 1939. LAC, CBC, Vol. 237, file 11–29. Elizabeth Long to Assistant Supervisor of Programmes, ‘Agreed Policies and Procedure – Talks Dept. Department of Women's Interests’, 5 Sept. 1945. LAC, CBC, Vol. 164, file 11–2 (Part 1), Programmes Policy – General.

36. H.G. Walker to Weir, 14 Dec. 1945. LAC, CBC, Vol. 290, file 14-1-12, Part 9, Reports & Memoranda for Parliamentary Committee 1946.

37. A.D. Dunton, Address to the Canadian Club, Toronto, 18 Mar. 1946. LAC, Ernest Bushnell Papers, MG 30 E250, Vol. 4, Personal typed record of speeches, addresses, articles and notes, by Bushnell and others, relating to broadcasting, 1941–57.

38. ‘Commercial Division’, n.d. [1944], 1. LAC, CBC, Vol. 49, file 2-3-5, part 2.

39. CBC Programme Division, ‘[Report on] Sound Broadcasting’, Mar.–Apr. 1952, 3. LAC, CBC, Vol. 46, file 2-3-2-2, part 3.

40. C.E. Silcox, ‘Is the Power of the Press Waxing or Waning?’ MS for Saturday Night, 1949, 4. United Church of Canada Archives, Claris Edwin Silcox Papers, Box 9, file 60.

41. Earle Kelly, ‘National Canadian News Broadcast’, [1937]. LAC, Graham Spry Papers, MG 30 D 297, Vol. 108, file 24, Clippings and commentary on the League, 1930s.

42. Gladstone Murray, ‘About the CBC Overseas, News, and Plays’, Broadcast on CBC Trans-Canada Network, 1 Jan. 1941, 4. LAC, CBC, Vol. 466, file 31-1.

43. Christopher V. Salmon, ‘Talks Presentation’, 1938. LAC, CBC, Vol. 177, file 11–18 (part 1).

44. ‘So You're Going on the Air – Tips to Talkers’, [1942], 1. LAC, Marjorie McEnaney Papers, MG 30 E342, Vol. 1, Scripts for Talks Department.

45. CBC Talks Department, ‘Hints for Canadian Roundup Reporters’, (Dec. 1943). LAC, CBC, Vol. 177, file 11–18 (part 1).

46. ‘Broadcast Talks: Hints to CBC Microphone Speakers’, n.d. [1944]. LAC, CBC, Vol. 177, file 11–18 (part 1).

47. Ernest Bushnell, ‘CBC Programme Standards’, Address at Queen's University, Kingston, 9 July 1945, 3. LAC, Ernest Bushnell Papers, MG 30 E250, Vol. 4, Personal typed record of speeches, addresses, articles and notes, by Bushnell and others, relating to broadcasting, 1941–57.

48. John Herries McCulloch, ‘Giving Canadian History the Air’, Toronto Star Weekly, 7 Mar. 1931: 5.

49. Edgar Stone, ‘Suggestions for the Development of Actors, Producers and Writers for Broadcasting’, 29 July 1938, 2–3. LAC, CBC, Vol. 851, file PG 1–15 (part 1), Development of Canadian Talent for Radio.

50. E.L. Bushnell, ‘Horror Programmes’, 6 Jan. 1945, 1. LAC, CBC, Vol. 861, file 4-2-1, part 1.

51. Constance McKay, ‘Speaking as a Listener’, broadcast 30 Oct. 1948, CBC Trans-Canada Network. LAC, CBC, Vol. 193, file 11-18-11-6 (part 1), PG8 – Speaking as a Listener.

52. Dorothy Brister Stafford, ‘Educating the Children by Radio’, Canadian National Railways Magazine, Oct. 1925: 31.

53. CBC Press Release re: ‘thrillers’. LAC, Records of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Vol. 276, file 11-42-9, part 3, Programming – Educational Broadcasts – Children's Programs – General.

54. G.P. ‘Regarding a Loan’, n.d. [1932]. LAC, E.A. Weir Papers, MG 30 D 67, Vol. 4, file 6, Lillian Esme Moonie.

55. ‘Report of the General Supervisor of Programmes on the Proceedings of the Programme Conference, Held, Toronto, August 8th and 9th, 1938’. LAC, Records of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Vol. 850, file PG1-13, part 1, Programming – General, National Program Meetings – Minutes & Agenda.

56. ‘Children's and Thriller Programmes’, 10 June 1946. LAC, CBC, Vol. 276, file 11-42-9, part 3, Programming – Educational Broadcasts – Children's Programs – General.

57. W.H. Brodie, ‘Bulletin #1: Royal Tour Broadcasts’, 31 Aug. 1951, 2. LAC, CBC, Acc. 86-87/031, Box 198, file 18-16R-10 to W-9.

58. W.H. Brodie, ‘Bulletin #6: Royal Tour Broadcasts’, 21 Sept. 1951. LAC, CBC, Acc. 86-87/031, Box 198, file 18-16R-10 to W-9.

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