Origins 

     On 3 May 1922, a Montreal newspaper, La Presse, the largest French-language daily in North America, announced the creation of its radio station, CKAC. La Presse had just obtained a broadcasting license from the Canadian government, as had 22 other private corporations. It was the dawn of commercial broadcasting in Canada, and CKAC entered the business with a substantial financial investment and an exceptional founder and director, Jacques-Narcisse Cartier.

     Cartier was doubly qualified for the post. He was both an expert technician who had traveled around the world and a journalist who had written for Montreal, British, and U.S. daily newspapers. He had been a longtime close collaborator with Guglielmo Marconi in his Canadian and U.S. East Coast enterprises. He had also developed a close friendship with David Sarnoff of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), whom he had introduced to the business in 1909. Cartier had served in World War I as an expert in communications for the Canadian Armed Forces and the British Royal Air Force and had worked in New York at American Marconi.

     From 1922 to 1937, CKAC and a few other private Quebec radio stations took on all of the responsibilities of a public radio service in the absence of state-run radio, which was not introduced until 1932. CKAC, because it was owned by a major newspaper, soon developed a very diverse content directed toward a variety of social groups and interests, unlike Montreal's English-language radio station, CFCF, which was created at the same time (as an extension of Marconi Wireless}. CKAC broadcast news programs, reports on North American stock exchanges, and concerts as early as 1922-23.

     Before the 1930s, CKAC was still in a developmental stage and was creating its own audience as well as its own market. In 1929 popular enthusiasm was so strong and stable that La Presse built a new transmitter just outside of Montreal in Saint-Hyacinthe, increasing the station's power from 5 ,ooo to 50,000 warts and making it the most powerful station in eastern Canada. An extensive programming schedule then became possible. The news service was consolidated and broadened. CKAC's second director, ].-Arthur Dupont, created a remote studio at a stock brokerage firm and broadcast financial bulletins twice daily. CKAC also became an associate of the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) in the United States in order to have the opportunity of exchanging CKAC symphony orchestra concerts for concerts by U.S. orchestras broadcast by CBS. Owing to its affiliation with CBS, CKAC could also broadcast translated versions of news programs, which had been difficult previously because of limits set by the Canadian Press Agency with regard to radio transmission of its news briefs. In 1930 the transatlantic flight of the famous British airship R-100 was a major media event marked by live daily radio coverage from the airport. Even more significantly, when the R-100 made its return crossing to Great Britain, a single francophone journalist was on board, CKAC's J.N. Cartier, who transmitted live daily reports from the dirigible. Thus CKAC was an enterprise bursting with potential when it was taken over by Louis-Philippe Lalonde in 1933. Lalonde would turn it into a financial success story for the next 30 years.

     In 1938, CKAC became the news station of first choice for its program Les nouvelles de chez-nous. In 1939 the station created a complete news service.

     During the same period, CKAC developed and implemented its educational mission, following the British and Western model. When the Quebec government decided, in 1929, to launch educational programming via radio, CKAC negotiated an agreement through which an important magazine-format program aimed at adult education was created and broadcast twice a week. The show was called L'heure provincille and was produced by a renowned economist from the Universite de Montreal, Edouard Montpetit. Its star was artist-musician­ writer Henri Letondal. At about the same time, CKAC launched two other specialized educational programs, L'heure universitaire (The University Hour) and L'heure catholique, the latter being developed following the model of the U.S. pro­ gram The Catholic Hour.

Development of Modern CKAC

     In the early 1940s, cultural programs on CKAC were numer­ous and well structured, influenced by the arrival of Ferdinand Biondi who would be the pillar of the station's programming in music, literature, education, and news for 25 years. In the liter­ ary field, CKAC played an important role, complemented by state radio, in supporting the creation of a body of theatrical works and other dramatic forms. In 1938, the station launched Theatre de chez-nous, which would present Quebec creations every week until 1947. During that same period, many authors whose work is now considered important were writing for the radio, including Robert Choquette, Gratien Gelinas, Jovette Bernier, Claude-Henri Grignon, and Ovila Legare.

     In the musical field CKAC evolved with changes in the col­ lective culture of Quebec as well as with more generalized changes in musical genres. From orchestral pieces to evenings of dance music, from religious concerts to the development of the Quebec popular song, all musical expressions typical of Quebec were integrated into CKAC's schedule, with the objective of highlighting the Quebec identity as a counterweight to the cultural influence of the United States. Thus CKAC, in collaboration with La Presse, created a weekly chart of Quebecois songs in 1959. In addition, the station continued to broadcast popular U.S. songs during appropriate time periods.

     In the 1970s, CKAC continued its role as an essential public service by broadcasting live reports from the scenes of major events, by being on the air around the clock, and by maintaining an important team of journalists, among whom was the famous reporter Pierre Pascau.

     CKAC remained the property of La Presse until 1969, when it was sold to Philippe de Gaspe Beaubien, owner of other stations and creator of the Telemedia network, a subsidiary of Power Corporation. This network, whose flagship was now CKAC, signed an agreement in 1988 that enabled it to rebroadcast programs from Radio France Internationale in Quebec.

     CKAC has been broadcasting without interruption since 1922. It has always maintained a type of general programming that appeals to various strata of the population, with programs ranging from family listening to health care information to topics of benefit to underprivileged segments of society. It is still the most listened to station in the Montreal region as well as in Western Quebec. Audiences in Quebec still listen to radio regularly; their average is 2.3 hours per week per listener. And the station also continues to advance into the future, as demonstrated by its change to digital technology broadcasts in 1999.