Phonothèque
québécoise
A Sound Archive
Preserving, documenting and sharing our sound heritage
|
|
Phonothèque
québécoise
A Sound Archive |
| 75 years of radio |
by Pierre Pagé, professor at the Université du
Québec à Montréal.
Sound clips (in French)
Conte de
Noël 189
K St-Valentin 64
K Chronique (Robe) 37 K Chronique (sous-vêtement) 144 K
/ Chronique (tissu) 135 K Animation
108
K Commentaires
(femmes et élections) 135 K / Chronique (Jupe)
117
K Chronique (Globe) 171 K
: Excerpts
from the show ”En parcourant les magasins” (variety and
consumption) hosted by Jacques Catudal and Anne Richard, CKAC, 1948 to
1949 at
the Archives nationales du Québec, Young & Rubicam Fonds
Actualités
(2e guerre mondiale) 394 K Actualités
(guerre - R.U./ UK) 376 K Actualités
(Hitler) 242 K Actualités
(guerre
et radio) 233 K Actualités
(espion à Régina) 242 K
Actualités
(publicité) 109 K Actualités
(chômage) 287 K Actualités
(McKenzie et guerre) 224 K Actualités
(indicatif) 135 K : News broadcast hosted by Jean Nolin,
CKAC, about 1940,
Phonothèque québécoise, Legris- Pagé fonds
(169 K)
The 1997 anniversary of radio in
Quebec is an opportunity to look back at the beginnings of an important
cultural institution, to understand the founders’ original intentions,
to appreciate
the nature of the driving forces and orientations that were expressed
in the
early years through organizational structures or through creative
output.
This kind of analysis and reflection has nothing to do with a
nostalgic look
back at the past or a desire to return to the good old days.
Methodically
collected information about the early forms of radio will create a body of knowledge that contemporary
society needs if it wants to evaluate the path already taken and to
expand the
boundaries of current practice. If we
take the trouble to get to know it, history can enlighten us about the
different kinds of relationships a medium may have with its host
society.
This research on the origins of radio broadcasting has encountered
many
obstacles. The founders of radio in Quebec and Canada have been almost
completely ignored, their thinking is unknown and their actions have
not been
studied. Politicized historical discourse has in general predominated.
Above
all, analysis is difficult because of the cumbersome obstacles
presented by a
large number of errors, errors of fact or of interpretation, that have
been
making the rounds for a long time in various publications that
unfortunately
are widely read.
These errors have to do first of all with the personality and the
role of CKAC
station founder, Jacques-Narcisse Cartier. They extend as well to his
immediate
successor, J.-Arthur Dupont. Equally serious and widespread errors
abound
concerning the dating of radio station CFCF, the Marconi company and
its main
experimental station, XWA. Finally, the errors extend to a strangely
faulty
reading of the early years of CKAC, which some describe as
“improvisation,”
despite the clear professionalism of the station’s owner, the
influential newspaper
La Presse.
Host Gilles Proulx, in his books on the history of Quebec radio, has
given
us anecdotal accounts and erroneous shortened versions of events. The likeable Roger Baulu, in his book on
CKAC, has recounted facts related to the origins of the station as
though they
were memories, even though he did not experience these things
personally. Leonard
Spencer edited his memoirs at the end of his life, giving himself a
disproportionately
important role. There have been two or three Masters theses that people
continue to cite without bothering to check their sources. All of these
faulty
information sources mean that the early years of radio broadcasting
have been
described based on a lot of faulty data. For
example, despite the great respect I have
for my colleagues, I must correct the statement made by Jean-Guy
Lacroix (1993 and
1980), repeated by Michel Sénécal (1995) that goes so far
as to say that CFCF’s
licence was granted to Marconi by the U.S. Federal Communication
Commission. Similarly
Michel Filion (1994), author and archivist in Ottawa, continues to
maintain,
among many other imprecisions, that the first broadcast licence in
Canada was
granted in 1919 to Marconi for the experimental station XWA. In fact,
this
licence was granted in 1915, at which time there were already 47
experimental licences
in Canada, 18 of them in Quebec. A manual published at
Télé-Université by S.
Douzou and K. Wilson (1994) should also be mentioned. It locates the
beginnings
of CKAC in 1923 instead of 1922, and shamelessly states that the first
Marconi-XWA
broadcast took place in 1918, right in the middle of war time. Many
other
references could be cited to illustrate these errors, which often
spring from a
desire to claim that XWA was the first radio station in the world, or
that CKAC
was the first French-language station in the world, both of which
statements
are false.
In the December 1966 issue of Fréquence-Frequency, I
published a
systematic rectification of these errors for the Marconi stations.
However,
many other historical aspects of the origins could be expanded upon if
the
newspaper La Presse would finally agree to open its
administrative
archives for this period to historians, and if CKAC would give access
to its historical
board of directors files.
But for CKAC, created in 1922 in Montreal by the newspaper La
Presse,
we need to push the analysis further. More than just another medium,
this was
truly a cultural institution that long remained closely woven into all
levels
of Quebec society. Further, this station created by Jacques-Narcisse
Cartier for
the newspaper La Presse, established a Quebec model for
programming, a
model firmly rooted in regional cultural resources and clearly oriented
as a
public service. Finally, it is interesting to point out that the year
1922 is
also the year in which the new radio medium was born in England, with
the BBC, in
France, with Radio-Paris and Radio-Tour-Eiffel, and as well in
Switzerland, in
Spain, in the U.S.S.R., in Denmark and in Germany. In the United
States, stations
began to emerge starting in 1920 and by 1922 there were several hundred
in
operation.
[ Return to summary ]
By 1922, it had been twenty years since wireless telegraphy
technology and
then wireless telephony, which was invented in Europe, had been tried
in
Quebec. Wireless technology was used in industry and in university
laboratories
(at Laval University since 1899), and it was taught in colleges and
academies. Wireless
technology returned to civilian society at the end of the 1914-1918
war, more
precisely on May 1st 1919, when the federal government
abolished the
restrictions that had been put in place for military reasons. In the
United
States, big businesses were busy selling their war surpluses, thus
creating a
market for civilian uses that would in turn prompt the creation of many
radio
stations. In Canada, the federal government modified its regulations in
1922, authorizing
the dissemination of wireless telephony to the general public.
"Broad-casting"
was became legal. In April of that year, the federal government granted
22 broadcasting
licences, among them to CKAC (La Presse), CFCF (Marconi), CJBC (Dupuis
Frères) and
CHYC (Northern Electric). Over the course of the year in 1922, a total
of 61
licences were granted. It is equally important to stress that special
licences
were granted to 13 training schools in Canada, 7 of these to Quebec.
One fact should be singled out for special mention: among the
licences
awarded in 1922, many were acquired by the big newspapers like La
Presse,
the Toronto Star, the Evening Telegram, the Manitoba
Free
Press, the Vancouver Sun, and the Edmonton Journal.
This is
the exact moment when radiophony, something well known to
engineers, crossed
paths with the newspaper, a fully mature medium that had expertise in
disseminating content. This intersection enabled the birth of a new
medium,
broadcast radio.
[ Return to summary ]
Jacques-Narcisse Cartier
(168 K)
In order to launch the new medium successfully, it wasn’t enough for
La
Presse to make a considerable investment in technology – which it
did in
giving a big contract to Marconi. There was also a need to create
programming,
to imagine the social function of this new medium, without which the
world had
nonetheless lived very well for a long time. The President of La
Presse
called upon one man to imagine, organize, host and manage the project.
Jacques-Narcisse
Cartier was a journalist and an expert technician who was well known in
specialized circles at the time. The newspaper the Montreal Herald
had
published an article about him in April of 1922, before CKAC was
created.
In 1922, Cartier was thirty-two years old. He had fourteen years of
experience behind him, a dozen of these in the international arena. He
was an
exceptional personality, brimming with audacity, imagination and
independence.
A native of Sainte-Madeleine, near Saint-Hyacinthe, he was recognized
as an
expert in the United States, England, Germany, France and Canada, above
all in
military circles. He had fought the entire war as a volunteer, from the
fall of
1914 to the winter of 1919, in the Canadian Expeditionary Force and
then in the
British Air Force, where he was attached to their counter-espionage
service. After
studying at the scientific and commercial academy in Saint-Hyacinthe,
he left
for Nova Scotia, where he learned the techniques of wireless
telephony with Marconi himself. He
quickly became a star among the staff of the company. He also formed a
close
and lasting friendship with David Sarnoff, one year his junior, who in
the
1920s would become managing director and then president of RCA in
New-York.
Cartier himself had worked for many years in New-York, for the American
Marconi
company and also for the German company Telefunken. When he arrived at La
Presse in 1922 to create CKAC, Cartier brought with him his
knowledge of
radio in New-York (where he collaborated in the creation of two
stations). He
had visited the South American stations, in particular those in Brazil,
with an
American financier and he also knew the British, German and French
technologies.
Radio schedule (93 K)
The challenge that Cartier faced when he arrived at CKAC was
substantial.
This was not just an engineering job where what mattered was to
guarantee the
reliability of the technical equipment. Cartier had to create a medium,
which
meant programming. From the moment the station was launched, on October
2,
1922, Cartier had a global plan. He had established contacts with many
artistic, scientific and social milieux that could feed into his
programs and find
a natural extension of their reach through radio. Starting in November,
he mailed
out personally signed postcards announcing CKAC / La
Presse’s official program.
Jacques-Narcisse Cartier (131 K)
From the outset, CKAC focused on sound quality and associated itself
closely
with music. Every other day, Montreal’s best performers would come and
play
classical music live.
As conceived by Cartier, the studio decor had very much the look of
an
elegant living room at the Windsor Hotel, or the Ritz, where concerts
were
given, with rugs and velvet hangings. Cartier, who was a man of the
world, saw
to it that this studio quickly became a coveted venue for politicians,
great
performers, writers and financiers. It was a curiosity of Montreal
modernity
that visitors of note absolutely had to see. At the same time, in late
autumn,
Cartier installed a tubular Casavant organ in his studio. Great Quebec
and
European performers would come to play it. Thus music, always live
needless to
say, was at the heart of the birth of radio.
Theatre was soon introduced to the studio as well. On
April 5, 1923, Cartier produced the first
radio play broadcast in Canada. It was an important play and those in
the know
appreciated it for its true political significance: Félix
Poutré, by Louis
Fréchette, a work focusing on the rebellions of 1837.
Starting in the spring of 1923, Cartier reached an agreement with
musicologist and music importer Raoul Vennat to air a weekly broadcast
of
French contemporary music. This show brought together professional
musicians
from Montreal to play works recently published in France. The series
was highly
successful and CKAC’s powerful signal allowed it to reach the
populations of
French Canadians dispersed in New England. The show made such a
powerful impact
that Westinghouse decided to launch its new station in Springfield,
Massachusetts, with an evening-long concert given by Raoul Vennat’s
team,
produced by Cartier.
The music was even more spectacular when, in June of 1923, Cartier
produced
a famous operetta at CKAC, Les Cloches de Corneville, with an
orchestra
of 25, a chorus of 38 singers, and professional soloists. One can
imagine the feats
that had to be accomplished to set things up properly to record sound
from such
a large group using the equipment available at the time.
There is much more to be said about the music programming at CKAC,
to give a
sense of how rich it was. We should mention the agreements struck with
the
orchestra of the Conservatoire national de musique, affiliated with the
Université
de Montréal, with the Société canadienne
d'opérette, with the private schools
Jeanne-Maubourg Roberval and Mont-Saint-Louis. We should also mention
the
clever agreements worked out with shipping companies in order to be
able to
broadcast dance music on Saturday nights, played by ship orchestras
docked in
the port of Montréal. And then there was the satellite music
studio created at
the Brasserie Frontenac, today the Maison de la culture Frontenac,
where
popular concerts were given when the orchestras were too big to fit
into the La
Presse studio.
A word should also be said about a series of concerts that was long
held to
be an important social event in the life of Quebec, a provincial
concert that
lasted six months in 1924. Every two weeks over this period, the best
brass
bands from Quebec’s major towns came into the studio, accompanied by
their mayors,
to participate in a concert judged by the public by means of a popular
vote. La
Presse received tens of thousands of votes.
Finally we should mention a bold initiative, a first in North
America: using
radio to give music lessons. For thirty weeks in 1925, the
internationally-known pianist Émiliano Renaud, gave a series of
courses based
on a manual distributed by La Presse, and illustrated with specific
examples
using excerpts of works played live.
The foregoing elements give but a small example of CKAC’s music
programming
during its first five years. All of this is not far from cultural
programming
that might officially be called educational.
In addition to music and theatre, Cartier, who came from a family
that was
highly engaged in the world of politics, which he knew well, set up a
whole
series of lectures in 1925. The series dealt with the regions of
Quebec, their
natural resources and tourism, and were given by politicians in each of
the
regions. It is startling to note how successful this initiative proved
to be,
so much so that in 1927, when Cartier retired, the
Montreal Gazette’s appreciation of
his career mentioned this series as an important element of his work.
Using music and theatre, discussion about the regions, lectures on
such
topics as economics or hygiene, Cartier made his radio station into a
kind of
forum. Here all categories of citizens, organizations, associations,
institutions and the regions all found a place. This was community
building,
articulating and sharing the resources of the community, in line with
what is
now the tried and true model of community radio.
A picture of the programming of this era would be incomplete without
mention
of a great technological and editorial first that took place in 1925.
This was
the broadcasting of the federal election campaign and the live show on
election
night. It was an epic performance. In order to follow the election
rallies in
the different centres across the island of Montreal and in the
surrounding
towns of Joliette, Sorel, Saint-Hyacinthe, and
Saint-Jérôme, Cartier, together
with Marconi, created a "mobile unit", similar to the ones in use
today but without the miniaturization. The equipment weighed 1800
pounds (850
kilos) and was transported in a truck. A 5-person team, led by Cartier,
produced
the shows. In October, the team produced the broadcast of a huge
political
rally at the Forum in support of Mackenzie King, attended by 18,000
people. Starting
from this moment, all political organizers knew that they would have to
contend
with the medium of radio.
All of these programming elements represent but a small percentage
of what
had to be created in order to produce a medium that mattered to a
society. Nonetheless,
they do give an idea of Cartier’s boldness and of the many directions
he
explored in order to make radio into a viable institution. We may,
then,
synthesize Cartier’s editorial vision without over-simplifying it by
citing an
excerpt from a presentation Cartier made to a parliamentary committee
of the
House of Commons in Ottawa, entitled "Le rôle véritable de
la radio dans
la vie d'un peuple".(“The true role of radio in the life of a people.”)
“In the case of La Presse as it is for all the other newspapers, the
goal of
the radio station is above all to provide the public with free
recreation and
to promote harmony in the land among people of different races and
religions.
... Radio is always available to the municipal, provincial or
federal
authorities, who can thus communicate first-hand information to the
people,
information that can educate or interest them.”
In 1927, Cartier left his job in order to care for a serious illness
he had
contracted: tuberculosis. He returned to his house in
St-Gabriel-de-Brandon for
two years and was able to conquer the disease. He would return to radio
on a
number of occasions for major events: to cross the Atlantic as a
reporter on
the British dirigible the R-100 (that would crash 6 months later) and
in 1935 as
vice president of the public broadcaster, the Canadian Radio
Commission. But
Cartier would pursue his career in the media above all by becoming
managing
director and then president of the newspaper Montréal-Matin,
from 1941 to
1947, and the of the newspaper Le Canada. He died at the age of
65 in 1915,
in the middle of his mandate as mayor of Chambly-Bassin.
But when Cartier left CKAC in 1927, he had prepared his succession
well. Joseph-Arthur
Dupont, his assistant since 1924, succeeded him and considerably
enlarged the
scope of CKAC by consolidating its cultural identity. Dupont had many
years of
experience with all aspects of the trade. He had been announcer, host,
journalist and technician, especially during the famous series of
reports for
the 1925 election campaign. Like Cartier, he took care to speak a
perfect
French, he had the same excellent knowledge of English and the same
passion for
the radio, which would be the one professional activity of his career.
Cartier
et Dupont, Quebec’s first two media men.
For the oldest among us J.-Arthur Dupont is rather known and one
thinks
spontaneously of the radio station he founded in 1945, CJAD, and that
is
identified by his own initials. This was long the source of the best
English-language news about Quebec. When Dupont sol dit in 1960, it
became
something else entirely.
[ Return to summary ]
Joseph-Arthur Dupont (181 K)
In 1927, Dupont took over the management of CKAC and conducted many
major
operations in parallel. At the same time, he expanded public service
broadcasts
and also enhanced the station’s profitability.
Dupont’s first major move was to increase CKAC’s broadcast power and
to
build the antennae of the Saint-Hyacinthe transmitter. CKAC went from
500 watts
to 5000 watts. It thus became the most powerful station in Canada and
was able
better to reach the French Canadians of the New England diaspora. Broadcasting began on October 19, 1929. Thanks
to its exceptional reach, CKAC became from then on a mass medium that
could
communicate with the bulk of the population of Quebec. At the same
time, Dupont
doubled the number of broadcast hours, expanding to 12 and then 14
hours a day.
In 1930, Dupont lodged an official request to receive authorization to
grow
from 5000 to 50000 watts.
Expanding the audience and increasing the number of broadcast hours,
these
form a solid base for a station that wants to turn a profit. However,
it was in
the area of programming that Dupont made his most decisive moves. In
1929, he
reached an exceptional agreement with the Quebec government, which had
just adopted its radio broadcasting law,
to broadcast a vast educational series in two one-hour shows each week.
This
was "L'Heure Provinciale", a mixed series of lectures and concerts by
Quebec performers. Responsibility for the scientific component was
given to Édouard
Montpetit, head of continuing education and secretary general of the
Université
de Montréal. Music was under the direction of Henri Letondal, an
exceptional
cultural spokesman. For ten years, from 1929 to 1939, "L'Heure
Provinciale" broadcast over 900 lectures, given by university
professors,
professionals and specialists of all kinds. The major areas covered
were
economy, social affairs, hygiene and public health, veterinary
medicine, the
arts, history, music and education. About 150 of these lectures were
broadcast
by English-language specialists, coordinated by a friend of
Édouard Montpetit, professor
Wilfrid Bovey, of McGill University, who had a long career in radio,
but whom
no one has yet studied (archival research).
Musically, “L'Heure Provinciale” was the experimental studio for all
the
great artists of the time, so much so that at the end of the series, in
1939, many
newspapers campaigned to ask the government to continue its subsidies.
Some chroniclers, in particular Robert Rumilly, have negligently
characterized "L'Heure Provinciale" as a simple pawn on the
chessboard of the jurisdictional battles between Quebec and Ottawa.
They have
clearly not examined the archives and they have not understood that a
cultural
series into which the government of the day put $30,000 a year over a
period of
ten years (in dollars of that time), is more than a passing whim, this
is a
foundational move. With the perspective of time, it is easy to see that
"L'Heure
Provinciale" was the highly appreciated precursor of what would be the
flagship series of Radio-Canada during the forties and fifties,
"Radio-Collège",
which, despite its name was university-level continuing education
radio.
In 1929, in parallel with "l'Heure Provinciale", Dupont put
another series of lectures on the menu, "L'Heure universitaire", also
under the direction of Édouard Montpetit, within the framework
of a mandate
from the Commission des études de l'Université. The show
was hosted on air by
professor Jules Derome.
In the autumn of 1931, Dupont, a man of profound religious
convictions,
aired the series "L'Heure catholique", run by Father Papin
Archambault, a Jesuit who was highly engaged in social issues. This
series
would last until the end of the 1930s. This was not a religious show
but rather
one that dealt with religious culture, the Bible, religious history and
Christian art.
In parallel with this kind of deep connection to the Quebec milieu
and the
links with Montreal institutions, in 1929 Dupont reached a first
agreement with
the American newwork CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System). This was when
the
first agreement was reached and not in 1933 as his successor’s publicist has claimed. What is fascinating is
to see the content of this agreement, which has nothing to do with an
Americanization of our Quebec airwaves. The agreement has to do with
the
broadcast of high quality music performances, concerts in essence,
given by
great orchestras. CKAC could thus offer its listeners the
orchestras of New-York,
Boston, Philadelphia, Hollywood. CKAC chose which concerts it wished to
broadcast, with no obligation to take the entire package. More
surprising yet
is the fact that Dupont then created the CKAC orchestra and that for
three
years, twice a week, a dozen American cities played a concert produced
in the CKAC
studios.
We may remember that all these developments happened at the time
when America
and the West were deeply affected by the Great Depression, brought on
by stock
market speculation and the great crash. This was the first effect of
globalization and people found themselves poor and unemployed.
In this context radio, as a medium for information, culture and
entertainment, played an absolutely essential role in public and
popular
culture in Quebec. The lectures on public hygiene, financial prudence,
home
economics, food, as well as the presentations of theatre and music
effectively
helped to compensate for the lack of means that was affecting the
population.
One of Dupont’s most fruitful and most long-lasting initiatives was
to make
CKAC a producer of radio dramas. He signed a contract with Robert
Choquette in
1931, and with him developed some initial programming of literary works
written
for radio. This idea was so successful that other authors were hired.
For
thirty years CKAC, like Radio-Canada, would broadcast original dramatic
works,
texts for children, fables, serialized stories, all of which
constitutes an
immense body of radio literature for which Renée Legris and I
were able to find
the manuscripts, and to deposit them with the Bibliothèque
Nationale du Québec.
Up until 1932, Dupont thus pursued and extended the directions
initiated by
his predecessor and friend Cartier.
Despite
its status as a private broadcaster, he made CKAC a public service
station that
put the quality of its message in the forefront of its programming.
When Dupont
left CKAC in Decmeber of 1932, he left a cultural station in full
bloom, one
that resembled what the public broadcaster, Radio-Canada, was airing
during the
1940s and 1950s. Dupont was replaced by a businessman, Louis-Philippe
Lalonde, a
lover of America, who would make the station a far more commercial
effort but
who would be tempered over the next twenty years, luckily, by debate
with
Ferdinand Biondi.
[ Return to summary ]
In December 1932, at the request of the president of La Presse,
Arthur
Dupont responded to the invitation of Minister Duranleau and moved to
the
public broadcaster, the Canadian Radio Commission. He became
French-language
program director for Eastern Canada. He would stay for twelve years
with the
public broadcaster, which would become Radio-Canada in 1936-1937, until
1945.
The programming Dupont would develop would at first be similar to
what he
had been doing at CKAC, taking into account nevertheless the political
constraints
that came with the governmental status of the CRC. An official
promotional text
presented CRC programming in the following subtle manner in 1934:
Radio entertainment.
Through the national network of the Commission, Canadian performers
will offer
Canadian living rooms programs intended for the Canadian public.
In this socio-cultural context, it is interesting to again highlight
a
musical innovation that we owe to Arthur Dupont. This is an agreement
that he
signed with the NBC network in 1933 to broadcast the Metropolitan opera
live
from NewYork. Begun on December 30, 1933, the show is still being
broadcast
today. For Dupont, culture had no borders, but it did have roots!
[
Return to summary
]
Montreal periodical
about radio
(1931)
(79 K)
From late autumn, 1922, until the end of 1932 was a decade of
cultural
innovation, in which a new medium in Quebec society acquired life and
meaning. Culture,
social and political information and education, concretized through
systematic
and diversified programming, these were the priorities of this private
station
that saw itself as a public service. Supported by the newspaper La
Presse,
the radio station CKAC was the extension of what was “the largest
French-language daily in America.” And CKAC, as a private enterprise
independent of the political arena and independent as well of the
religious and
academic authorities, was for the people the expression of its various
institutions, its community organizations and its public culture.
--Pierre Pagé, Professor
at UQAM
[ Return to summary ]
| 75 years of radio |
||
| Key dates | CKAC: the first decade 1922-1933 |
Guide to archival and museological sources |
| Image gallery | Sound clips | Bibliography |
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