Broadcasting in Canada

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 8, 7 September 1928, Page 5

Broadcasting in Canada

AT present the control of broadcasting in Canada is in the hands of the Federal Government at Ottawa. A license fee of 4s. 2d., payable annually at the commencement of the Government’s financial year, is imposed on listeners. It is estimated that there are 350,000 receiving sets in the Dominion, of which 260,000 are licensed. After deducting commission paid to radio dealers and certain postmasters for collection of license fees, the revenue at this date amounts to approximately £40,000 per annum. The whole of this sum is expended by the radio department of the Ministry of Marine and Wisheries upon a= service to listeners. This service consists of the detection and prevention throughout the Dominion of electrical interference with broadcasting. . Radio suffers much from this source, because Canada is a land in which practically all electrical power, including that used for lighting and heating, is carried overhead by cable, and the expenditure of the license revenue on the elimination of this trouble is universally applauded. Seventy broadcasting stations owned by commercial undertakings operate under license for which a small fee is charged by the Ministry of Marine and Fisheries, which allocates the frequencies and the transmission hours. Of these stations there is only one using more than 2 kilowatts in the aerial. Owing to the vast number of cone paratively weak American and Canadian stations which share equal hours with the more powerful stations, the townspeople are well catered for whereas the country folk have an inadequate service. There is a need for a reorganisation which is being contemplated.