Canadian Broadcasting Corporation : The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is a Crown corporation created by the Broadcasting Act which received royal assent on June 23, 1936 (Statutes of Canada, 1 Edward VIII, Chap. 24) and which was proclaimed on November 2, 1936. On November 4, 1936 the first formal meeting of Board of Governors of Canadian Broadcasting Corporation took place under chairman Leonard Brockington. Subsequent updates to the Broadcasting Act were made in 1958, 1968 and 1991.
The CBC replaced an earlier publicly-owned broadcasting agency, the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (CRBC) created in 1932 by the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Act. The CRBC mandate was to provide programs and extend coverage to communities across Canada. The Commission also took over the radio stations and other facilities of a small radio network belonging to the Canadian National Railways and began to broadcast in both English and French.
When the CBC assumed the responsibilities of the CRBC it also assumed its responsibility for regulating all broadcasting in Canada, including broadcasting by privately-owned stations and networks. Although the CBC kept these regulatory responsibilities in its early history, the Broadcasting Act of 1958 implemented the recommendation by the Royal Commission on Broadcasting headed by Robert Fowler to remove the responsibility for regulating all Canadian broadcasting from the CBC. A separate regulatory agency, the Board of Broadcast Governors (BBG) was set up to regulate all Canadian broadcasting, including the CBC, and to make recommendations about the licensing of broadcasting services. The CBC retained its responsibility for operating its broadcasting service and was established as a separate organization with its own board. The BBG was subsequently replaced by another separate regulatory body, the Canadian Radio and Television Commission in 1968 (as of April 1 1976 called the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission).
The mandate of the CBC today is to promote Canadian programming on television and radio networks. The Broadcasting Act requires that CBC programming be predominantly and distinctively Canadian; reflect Canada and its regions to national and regional audiences, while serving the special needs of those regions; actively contribute to the flow and exchange of cultural expression; reflect the different needs and circumstances of French and English language communities; strive to be of equivalent quality in English and in French; contribute to a shared national consciousness and identity; be available throughout Canada; and reflect the multicultural and multiracial nature of Canada.
The CBC is designed to provide a national broadcasting service; it provides a regular television and radio broadcasting service in English and French, cable-distributed all-news networks in French and in English, and operates a multilingual radio and television service to the Far North. The CBC has also had varying degrees of responsibility over the years for broadcasting to the armed forces and for operating and funding the international broadcasting service Radio Canada International.
As a Crown corporation modelled on the British Broadcasting Corporation, the CBC has some measure of independence from government control. The Corporation is financed by public funds and supplemented by commercial revenue. All public funds provided to the CBC are subject to Parliamentary approval. From 1936 to 1958 the CBC was headed by a board of governors, initially composed of 9 unsalaried members representing the various sections of Canada. The board was responsible for the formulation of general policy and for regulating the private stations. The board was also responsible for appointing a general manager and an assistant general manager to oversee the day-to-day operations of the corporation. The first general manager was Gladstone Murray, a Canadian-born director of public relations for the BBC. The CBC currently reports to Parliament through the Minister of Canadian Heritage and falls under regulatory authority of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). A Brief History Of The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Public Relations, CBC Head Office, Ottawa, July 1976.
