Radio turns 100 today.
On the evening of May 20, 1920, members of the Royal Society of Canada gathered at Ottawa’s Château Laurier hotel for an event that would launch Canada into the radio age. They listened to a performance by soprano Dorothy Lutton, broadcast live on XWA (Experimental Wireless Apparatus) – the first station in Canada to receive an experimental radio licence. Although the ground-breaking broadcast was transmitted from the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of Canada’s factory studio in Montréal to the Naval Radio Service in Ottawa, a receiving station and large amplifier had been set up for the occasion in the hotel’s ballroom.
Later in 1920, XWA changed its call letters to CFCF – for Canada’s First, Canada’s Finest. In 1922, the station began commercial broadcasting. That year, Montréal’s CKAC also became the first licensed radio station in North America to offer French-language programming.
Canada Post issued a pair of stamps to mark the 100th anniversary of the first scheduled radio broadcast in Canada.
