What's a New Public Broadcaster To Do?: The Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission's Programs in Transnational Context, 1932–1936

Abstract

Canada was the first country challenged by the massive inflow of American popular culture. The Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (CRBC), Canada's first national public broadcaster, was created to provide an alternative to U.S. network and Canadian commercial radio. After analyzing the CRBC's programs, this article concludes that even the public network imitated or incorporated much American programming, but recontextualized it to Canadian locations, both real and imaginative, and supplemented it with more nationally oriented serious and symbolic content as well. The case study fits within the framework of the international literature emphasizing the hybridity and resiliency of national cultural identities.

Notes

¹I use the term “transnational” to mean the flow of the products of cultural industries across national borders, or more specifically the consumption by the citizens of one nation of cultural goods produced or created in another. It may also imply, as discussed below, that the exchange is a two-way process.

²The term “media ecology” as used here suggests the study of the media as dynamic, holistic, and interactive processes. The approach involves examining the connections between organization, production, and consumption as well as the relationships between different forms of media and the social systems within which they operate.

³Sir John Reith (later Lord Reith), founding Director-General of the BBC, believed that radio should act as a public service bringing information, education, and entertainment to the whole nation. His rather top-down, culturally uplifting approach, bolstered by the BBC's monopoly status, stood in contrast to the free-market principles that underlay U.S. broadcasting and that prioritized popular programs to attract large audiences.

⁴Later after the CBC took over it did air the most popular American shows, for they cross-subsidized other productions by attracting both audiences and advertisers. This led to a considerable increase in American-originated programming not only on the public network but on the competing private stations. See MacLennan, 2005.

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Notes on contributors

Mary Vipond

Mary Vipond (Ph.D., University of Toronto, 1974) is distinguished professor emeritus in History and a research fellow with the Centre for Broadcasting Studies at Concordia University in Montreal. She is currently writing a book on propaganda on the CBC during the Second World War.