CCF Exposed

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CCF Exposed

Postby OpenMike » Fri Nov 09, 2007 12:11 pm

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ARTICLE

CANADIAN COMMUNICATIONS FOUNDATION: A TREASURE TROVE OF CANADIAN BROADCASTING HISTORY
by: DAPHNE LAVERS

- Newfoundland’s VOCM radio started in 1933, operating from the second floor of the Williams’ family home in St. John’s. The station’s antenna was in the back yard and technical gear was in a back room on the main floor.

- Foster Hewitt, the radio voice of Hockey Night in Canada, began his broadcasting career at the Toronto Daily Star’s radio station, CFCA, launched in 1922. But Hewitt’s duties encompassed more than hockey. In a radio interview, he describes calling a football game between Queens and Toronto’s Varsity team from the rooftop of Richardson Stadium in Kingston, Ontario, with his feet in the eavestrough as the weather turned from sunny, to cold, to rain and to snow, perched in position from an hour before game time to after the game was over.


- On CFRB, Gordon Sinclair issues his defence of Canada’s neighbours to the south in his famous radio broadcast “The Americans”, calling them the most generous and least appreciated people in the world. Sinc, as he was fondly known, had already revealed his unconventional and sometimes-blunt style, which did not endear him to some of Canada’s military top brass.


These historical gems of actual voices, anecdotes and written stories are at a place on the Internet where history aficionados, Canadian broadcasters both current and retired, cyberspace travellers, academics and students can lose themselves in a treasure trove of images, voices, video, stories and near-encyclopaedic volumes of information on the world of Canadian broadcasting.


With a prime focus on Canada’s private broadcasters, but also including substantial coverage of CBC matters and stations, the website, www.broadcasting-history.ca, is that comprehensive world where browsers can watch, listen to and read about:



• all of Canada’s 979 radio stations, both private and public, including launch dates, call letters, transmission frequencies, signal strength, ownership and evolution;


• all 146 Canadian television stations complete with launch dates, call letters, network affiliations, ownership and year-by-year chronologies; and


• 385 (at last count) biographies of Canadian broadcast pioneers and industry people including all those inducted into the CAB Hall of Fame, from Charles and Jim Allard to Marge Anthony, from Johnny Esaw to Danny Gallivan, from Elmer Hildebrand to Peter Mansbridge, from Knowlton Nash to Duff Roman, from a trio of Sinclairs to Johnny Wayne and Moses Znaimer.



Broadcasting is stories, and stories within stories. With 240 original audio clips and 83 video clips, www.broadcasting-history.ca is home for many of them.


From Start To Ryerson


It’s been a 40-year journey to bring the website to life and to its current incarnation. It has been accomplished by the Canadian Communications Foundation (CCF).


It was in 1967 that the Canadian Association of Broadcasters decided to mark Canada’s centennial with the launch of this new and very special organization. With start-up funds of $25,000 – not an insignificant amount at the time – its rather lofty mission was to “commemorate throughout Canada the development of electronic communications”.


“In the ensuing years,” chronicles the Origins section of the site, “the project moved forward slowly, perhaps because broadcasters were too preoccupied with the challenges of the present and the future of their industry to be able to properly reflect on or to chronicle the past. But, all the while, a search was carried on to find the ideal vehicle through which to fulfill the mission.”


In the late 1980s the Foundation began to move towards its current operational structure. In 1987, industry executive Ross McCreath started what turned out to be an initial two-year stint as president of CCF. Professionally, McCreath had served as president of All-Canada Radio & Television, a subsidiary of Selkirk Communications, among other executive positions in the industry. During this first two-year term, he began an ambitious project to complete 150 audio recordings of both retired and active broadcasters who had shaped the industry in Canada. The recordings were deposited at the National Archives, but McCreath kept copies.


In the early 1990s McCreath joined forces with career broadcaster Lyman Potts, copyright expert, Standard Broadcast executive and founder of the Canadian Talent Library. The search for a home for the 150 audio tapes, together with reams of information and documents from early days in Canadian broadcasting, led to Jon Keeble, then chair of the Radio & Television Arts program at Ryerson in downtown Toronto.


Keeble’s connections to broadcasting were also substantial. Not only was he a senior Ryerson RTA academic, his father, Gordon Keeble, was one of the original applicants for the new Toronto private television licence being awarded in 1960. Unsuccessful in this application, the elder Keeble worked with Spencer Caldwell to launch the CTV network and, later, founded Keeble Cable.


However, said the younger Keeble, Ryerson had no physical space for the Foundation’s audio tapes or anything else, and no mandate for archive or museum activities. But he took a couple of weeks to discuss the issue with some of his colleagues and his students.


In the early 1990s, the Internet was virtually unknown outside military and academic circles, and barely capable of handling e-mail. The unfamiliar concept of the World Wide Web mostly encompassed very early versions of the Netscape and Mosaic browsers. But RTA students and staff rapidly concluded that the Web was the place for CCF.


Looking back on the early Internet years, “we’d set the groundwork in place,” said Keeble. “What Ryerson promised to do for (CCF) was to house the archive on a server here and the server would be available on the Internet for the world. And that’s what we’ve consistently done.”


By 1994, the Foundation had changed its location from Ottawa to Toronto, CAB turned CCF over to Ross McCreath, president of the revitalized Foundation, and sent along the remainder of the initial start-up funds. Since 1967, only $10,000 had been spent, but the cheque that enabled McCreath and his associates to continue CCF operations was $32,000 – thanks to the magic of compound interest.


Web Work Continues


Throughout the 1990s, McCreath and Foundation Vice-President Lyman Potts worked on stories and articles for the website. They created a Personalities section, to enshrine biographies of all those broadcasters who had been inducted into the CAB Hall of Fame, and added additional profiles of other pioneering industry movers and shakers. They began writing the profiles for radio and television stations, and created sections on news broadcasting, networks, programming and associations.


Ryerson staff and students continued to contribute to the site both in research and in web design and hosting.


Webmaster Trevor Trinkaus began working on the CCF website while still a student in Radio & Television Arts at Ryerson. He graduated and continued as site administrator through his own web company, Myriad Media.


By 1997, broadcasting-history.ca carried 130 biographies and information on most TV stations up to 1965. Former DJ and newsman Bill Dulmage, destined to be a substantial contributor to the site, provided the Foundation with an additional 240 radio station histories.


Two years later, by 1999, CCF had completed listings and data for all 563 Canadian radio stations, all 116 Canadian television stations, profiles of all 148 members of the CAB Hall of Fame and a host of other broadcasting pioneers. The site also included major feature sections on, for example, the Canadian National Railway broadcast network, Canada’s first, and its significance for early broadcasting.


“The early days (of constructing the website) were just a scramble not to get too far behind on the people who were in the pioneering section, and to catch up all the history of the stations right from 1919 through to 1991, as the starting point,” said Jon Keeble. “It was just a mad scramble not to get completely overwhelmed by the earliest stuff that went on.”


2000 A Momentous Year


The year 2000 marked the 100th anniversary of radio, and CCF decided to highlight the first voice of radio, Canadian Reginald Fessenden. The Foundation re-published Radio’s First Voice: The Story of Reginald Fessenden by Toronto author Ormond Raby, under its own imprimatur. (Copies are still available from the Foundation.)


The year 2000 also marked a major change in the fortunes of the Foundation. For the first time, CCF was included as a potential recipient of a portion of the benefits package of a major broadcast deal – the Bell acquisition of the CTV Network.


CCF is incorporated as a registered charity, which means that donations to the Foundation are legitimate tax deductions accompanied by tax receipts. Over the years, CCF had received support through corporate and individual contributions, but the annual budget had remained below $10,000 for most of its existence. The Bell/CTV agreement included funding of $250,000 for CCF, the first major funding of this size the organization had ever received.


CCF vice-president Pip Wedge, former British music business and television executive who in 1973 became vice-president of programming for the CTV Network, described the impact of such substantial funding.


“The key was the BCE/CTV deal, when Ross finally had some money to pay writers and researchers,” said Wedge. “That got us to the point where we were able to complete a history of every radio and television station in the country. Finally we were also able to complete an up-to-date record of all the Canadian program series produced for national broadcast or seen nationally on CTV, CBC and Global. We even have details on some of the CHCH shows like Party Game and House of Frightenstein that got syndicated nationally and became cult favourites. To be able to get all of that written involved having some money to pay people to do it.”


That year the Foundation also secured and registered its own identifiable website address. The site name changed from the Ryerson web location to its own more easily recognizable www.broadcasting-history.ca.


In 2002, stories were added dealing with the business side of station sales representatives, in the sports section on television figure skating, and in the radio area, with a major piece on radio formats. In 2003, an engineering section was added and work began on what would become a two-year project to build an interactive visual timeline.


It was in 2002 that now CCF Vice-President Pip Wedge discovered the website and became involved doing research and editing for various site components. With his background initially in music journalism and subsequently television production and executive management, he began his involvement with the Foundation by proof-reading and editing the existing website. Wedge then moved on to complete 200 to 300 profiles on TV programs, and a host of individual personality profiles. He also contributed pieces on simultaneous substitution and on the problems inherent in delivering a national network service to six different time zones by microwave. Vice-president Lyman Potts, actively working in the business and on the site for many years, retired from the Board of the Foundation, but continued his website contributions; Wedge took over as CCF vice-president in 2004.


Expansion and Unique Features of the Website


Website administrator Trevor Trinkaus has been involved in the site since his first year at Ryerson in 1996-97. The site averages about 1,000 unique visitors a month with nearly 30% of browsers making return visits, Trinkaus observed, an unusually high number for a site of this nature.


From time to time Trinkaus receives e-mails from site visitors, often providing updates or suggestions for revisions to site entries. There are a substantial number of outside or community contributions to the information on the site.


“That’s surprising,” said Trinkaus, “because normally a site like this, with primarily reference material, would not get that large amount of traffic. A number of people use the site not only for academic but for recreational reading – we get a lot of feedback.”


Trinkaus revamped the entire website in 2000, moving it from static pages requiring a single point of revision to a database format. The revamp allowed the creation of an administration system – a content management system where McCreath and Wedge could themselves handle updates and changes to those sections that required constant attention. The revamp both increased efficiency and the amount of information that could be placed on the site in a short period of time.


One of several unique features of broadcasting-history.ca is a visual timeline that appears on the homepage of the site. The timeline presents an interactive moving montage of images in Canadian broadcasting. As the montage scrolls continually across the screen, decades of the 20th century in Canadian broadcasting roll past. At any point, visitors can trigger on the timeline pop-up headlines, photo identifiers, site links to the stories behind the pop-ups, as well as links to station histories as they came on the air, year by year.


The century in Canadian broadcasting history scrolling across the screen was put together by then-Ryerson student Laura Hindbuch, an effort that took two years to complete, with the help of webmaster Trinkaus who was there to make all the connections.


The historical treasure trove is among the most comprehensive resources in existence for Canadian broadcasting. Well-known Canadian broadcast lawyer John Hylton, Q.C. supervised the completion of an extensive History of Canadian Broadcast Regulation which encompasses 107 years of milestones. The outline cites major statutory, regulatory, policy and legal landmarks since the first radio signals were received in Newfoundland. An Engineering section includes articles on the CN Tower, the Havana Treaty of 1937, distant signals, and the evolution of different transmitters. The Broadcast Associations & Services section includes a history of the CAB, and articles on the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement and the business of broadcast sales representation.


The Ryerson Connection


Throughout most of CCF’s history, work for the Foundation and on the website has been mostly pro bono.


“Except for the money that goes out to students, and to (some) writers, there is no other overhead,” said Ryerson’s Jon Keeble. “Ryerson isn’t charging for the site, or for our engineers to make sure the software is still working. There are also charges for managing the website, but when we get some money, we can go a long way with it.


The Foundation secured a major feature section for the website from writer Sidney Margles on the growth of news broadcasting, a comprehensive examination of news from 1952 onwards. Margles was aided in this exhaustive effort by three Ryerson students who completed interviews with 25 well-known broadcasters and newscasters such as radio commentator Dick Smyth, newscaster Lloyd Robertson, Parliamentary reporter Mike Duffy and Broadcast News executive Bob Trimbee.


At present, two Ryerson students are working under the supervision of Jon Keeble with reams of material on analog and DAT audiotape, videotape in mini-DV, VHS and Betacam formats and print material, reviewing and selecting clips to continue animating the website with actuality.


Hillary McCarrel, a fourth-year student, has compiled audio clips of broadcasters including broadcast pioneer Jim Allard, CHUM radio owner Allan Waters, CTV founder Spencer Caldwell and cable executive Michael Hind-Smith. Third-year international student Dan Demaria has edited video clips of such broadcasters as news executive Tim Kotcheff, CFRB correspondent Tayler Parnaby and CTV anchor Lloyd Robertson.


Many of the stories McCarrel has worked on, she said, are truly inspiring, especially for up-and-coming broadcast students. And she’s noticed something key about the broadcasting industry.


“Everyone who talks about broadcasting loves it,” she said. “They have such a strong passion for it, listening to it you can’t help but smile… People in the industry have gone from nothing to pretty much manager of a station and president… So many people talk about how they got into radio or how they got into television on these tapes – it seems like it’s this crazy path, people start here, and it leads to the next job, and the next job, or they start in radio and end up in television. It’s really inspiring how their path has taken them and teaches (us) a little bit of what to expect in this crazy sort of industry we’re in!”


The Essentials of Remembering


The three key CCF activists, Ross McCreath, Pip Wedge and Lyman Potts, have poured hundreds, if not thousands, of hours into securing and safeguarding the history of Canadian broadcasting. It is a labour of love, but it is also a labour of record-keeping, of story-telling, of reference-making for “an industry of information, of news, of what’s happening, of what the rest of the world is doing,” said Wedge.


“Broadcasting creates a very different product from nuts and bolts, or widgets or curling irons. Our whole nation has changed, the whole world has changed because of broadcasting,” Wedge observed. “You cannot have a present and a future without being aware of the past. You don’t start from nothing. There’s history in everything and the history of broadcasting in Canada is a key element in the knitting together – as the CRTC loves to refer to it – of the ‘socioeconomic fabric of the country on an east-west axis!’”


The contribution of broadcasting, and particularly private broadcasting, to the fabric of the country is a component of nation-building not often recognized in Canada. Jon Keeble. “There was no place where a national voice was heard except in broadcasting. When Mackenzie King fired up the network in 1936, that was the first moment all of Canada could hear their prime minister simultaneously, no matter their time zone. The only way that Canadians have actually been linked – other than by the railways themselves in the earlier days – the only thing capable of instantaneous linkages has been broadcasting.”


To Ross McCreath, securing the tapes he commissioned in the late 1980s became increasingly important with the passage of time. A number of those broadcast pioneers are no longer alive, and with the passing of the pioneers, the entrepreneurs, the broadcast originators who strung transmitter wire in the backyard, their stories are lost if not captured in some form.


“There’s information on this website that you can’t get anywhere else,” McCreath said. “There’s absolutely no other place that gives you everything that we’ve got. All of this has happened in the space of a century, and look how far we have come in broadcasting in that space of time.”


To Lyman Potts, “people need recognition for what they do.”


“There are so many stories that could be told, that should be told,” Potts said. “You mention a name, there’s a story there.” And from the battles with CBC over electrical transcription and CBC regulation of private stations to the founding of the Canadian Talent Library, Potts’ determination to see the story of private broadcasting in Canada recorded and available makes these stories accessible to the world.


The broadcasting community in this country is a small group whose groundbreaking achievements more often than not began as a family business or the dream of a single individual. The pioneers, said Keeble, “are always more colourful than the people who come afterwards, because the people who come later are those who can make the business work after that pioneering stage.”


“Way back then,” said Keeble, “you would only persevere against the hell that was broadcasting – in the early days with your towers attacked by ice, inconsistent power, inconsistent transmitters – you’d only persevere because you loved it, you thought, my God this is the best thing ever… These guys are in it because it’s a blast, it’s the best kind of job to have.”


Pioneering radio broadcasters in the 1920s and 1930s were followed by the television pioneers in the 1950s and 1960s. The next batch of entrepreneurs was personified in the group that started CITY-TV in Toronto, a UHF station whose impact on the community it served underscored the importance of cable TV in the evolution of the 500-channel universe.


“The website is an excellent resource for people who want to learn how the broadcasting system in Canada came to be,” said Keeble, “including their own television stations, because now, even television stations in the 500-channel universe are ancient history as well.”


And broadcasting-history.ca will record, write about and preserve whatever comes next.


Daphne Lavers is a Toronto-based freelancer. She may be reached by e-mail at dlavers@passport.ca.
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Postby jon » Fri Nov 09, 2007 12:25 pm

This article is from the current issue of Broadcast Dialogue magazine:
http://www.broadcastdialogue.com

For those of you who, like me, still like paper, a free subscription is available by filling in the form at http://www.broadcastdialogue.com/newsubscribe.html
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