Year Born: 1908
Year Died: 1994
Year of Induction: 1987
Pioneer – Member of CAB Hall of Fame
Botterill, Norman Audley (1908-1994)
Pioneer career broadcaster/broadcasting executive. Norman Botterill entered Radio in 1927. He was only 14 years old when he started at the short lived CKLC (1927 – 31) Red Deer.
“Norm” soon moved on to Edmonton where, in the early part of 1934, Taylor & Pearson Ltd. (the company that founded CFMK in 1923 and which had sold it in 1927 to the Alberta government to become CKUA) had acquired, early in 1934, CHMA – the station which had been licensed to the Christian and Missionary Alliance. The call letters were changed to CFTP. However, in November of 1934, Taylor and Pearson (later to be joined by Harold Carson) took over the management of Southam’s Edmonton Journal station – CJCA. CFTP was bought by Dick Rice and Hans Nielsen (becoming CFRN) and Norm stayed with TPC.
Subseqently, Norm was made Program Director of CFAC Calgary, then Manager of CJOC Lethbridge.
He took a leave of absence in 1946 to establish Saint John, New Brunswick’s second station, CFBC,returning to the TPC fold to manage CKRM Regina.
Then vame a second term at CJOC Lethbridge. He launched Lethbridge’s first TV station – CJLH-TV (CISA-TV), in 1955.
In 1969, he was appointed as Director of Selkirk Holdings Ltd., which grew out of the Taylor Pearson Carson chain, and later, Director of Radio Operations (Western Canada) for Selkirk Communications Ltd. (successor to Selkirk Holdings Ltd.). Norm made his headquarters in Calgary and, in due course, took his retirement there.
In 1987, Norm Botterill was inducted into the CAB Broadcast Hall of Fame.
In 1994, Norman Botterill died in Calgary.
Written by J. Lyman Potts – January, 1997