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A. Davidson Dunton on TV in Canada

Broadcast Date: Dec. 11, 1948

Though the medium is still in its infancy, broadcasters recognize that television will become an important social force. That's why CBC chairman A. Davidson Dunton wants to be take his time introducing television to Canada. Addressing a convention of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, Dunton says it should be "essentially Canadian," projecting Canadian abilities, thoughts and initiatives.

Financing television in Canada is another challenge. With a single TV station, broadcasters in the United States and Britain can reach more people than the entire population of Canada. But building a Canadian television system would mean setting up multiple broadcasting facilities in centres across the country. Dunton says it can be done, advocating a financing scheme that depends on both public subsidies and commercial revenues.

A. Davidson Dunton on TV in Canada

• The British Broadcasting Corporation provided the world's first television service starting in 1936, but suspended it when the Second World War began.
• CBC engineer Alphonse Ouimet proposed a similar service for Canada in 1936, but his idea was rejected.
• The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) in the United States began regular programming in 1941, and within months of the end of the Second World War there were seven TV stations in the country.

• By 1948 the CBC, which was then the broadcast regulator, had received many applications for TV broadcast licences and was planning stations of its own in Montreal and Toronto. But the federal government was reluctant to fund it. "If I were living in my hometown of Port Arthur, I'd kick like a steer at paying taxes to bring television to Montreal and Toronto," said C.D. Howe, a cabinet minister in charge of a committee on TV development.

• In early 1949 the Canadian government announced that the CBC board of governors would oversee the introduction of television in Canada. One year later, Canadians had purchased a total of 30,000 TV sets – all of them tuned to signals from the United States.
• A target date of September 1951 was set for CBC to begin TV operations, but it was pushed back a year when the Korean War created equipment shortages.

• CBC Television took to the air on Sept. 6, 1952 in Montreal and two days later in Toronto.
• The first private television station in Canada was Sudbury's CKSO, which began broadcasting in October 1953. Two years earlier the government had ruled there could be no private station in any city with a CBC station.
• The first private network, CTV, went on the air in October 1961 with eight stations.

• A. Davidson Dunton was chairman of the CBC from 1945 to 1958, when he became president of Carleton University. Five years later he was appointed co-chair of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism.

A. Davidson Dunton on TV in Canada

Medium: Radio

Program: CBC Radio News Special

Broadcast Date: Dec. 11, 1948

Guest(s): A. Davidson Dunton

Duration: 10:26

Last updated:
April 16, 2008