Transcript
00:00:02 Speaker 2
Unfortunately, it happens that you get something that.
00:00:05 Speaker 2
Works really well.
00:00:05 Speaker 2
And then they don’t pick up making it.
00:00:06 Speaker 1
Yeah, don’t make them anymore.
00:00:08 Speaker 2
OK, this is Tate #3 with Ian Clark in Kamloops. I’m still recording, yeah.
00:00:15 Speaker 2
And you were telling me stories about the transmitter?
00:00:20 Speaker 1
Gather so many of them that you know that come to mind.
00:00:27 Speaker 2
Well, one I thought was funny when I heard it was the was the story about the royal visit and the wire recorder.
00:00:33 Speaker 1
Oh yes.
00:00:34 Speaker 1
Oh, did you?
00:00:35 Speaker 1
Did you hear about that?
00:00:37 Speaker 1
Well, this is when the before the teeps wire recorders.
00:00:45 Speaker 1
And you know, all they, I don’t know, really.
00:00:48 Speaker 1
We had one or two.
00:00:51 Speaker 1
But uh.
00:00:54 Speaker 1
The royal couple were down at Riverside Park.
00:00:59 Speaker 1
And there was quite a dude on there, and the mayor and the MLA and the MP and others and all and all welcoming these wonderful people to camp loops and and then they, Prince Philip spoke and.
00:01:20 Speaker 1
So when we got back again we.
00:01:22 Speaker 2
It would be in Prince Philip.
00:01:24 Speaker 2
Oh, it was.
00:01:25 Speaker 2
When it was.
00:01:25 Speaker 2
Still, Princess Elizabeth, right?
00:01:26 Speaker 1
Oh, maybe was it Prince?
00:01:28 Speaker 1
Yeah, it was Prince Phillip.
00:01:31 Speaker 2
But it was before that the Elizabeth became queen.
00:01:35 Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was.
00:01:40 Speaker 1
I think, but in any event, the we had the we’re going to use the excerpt from the from the news and you know they we thought well the thing we we start with the Prince Philip and it was more or less of a Cliff.
00:02:00 Speaker 1
A newsclip.
00:02:03 Speaker 1
And so we had this all lined up and everything was ready to go and we had this one recorder set right in the the control.
00:02:15 Speaker 1
Room, you know.
00:02:17 Speaker 1
And so this is all set to go on the.
00:02:23 Speaker 1
And whose fellow in the studio introduced the thing and.
00:02:29 Speaker 1
Read some.
00:02:31 Speaker 1
I forget what it was, something to be opened up.
00:02:34 Speaker 1
And that he talked about the train arriving in Kamloops and escorting the people down in the park, and all the people that were down in the park and what have you and.
00:02:46 Speaker 1
And then he went on and he said, and Prince Philip said, he gives the guy the high sign on comes this since Smith limited Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Chevrolet cars.
00:02:58 Speaker 1
You know that the thing turned off.
00:03:02 Speaker 1
And, you know, scrambling around trying to find out where the tape went.
00:03:04 Speaker 1
So they found in the control room, he said.
00:03:06 Speaker 1
Well, I think there was, we goofed, he said.
00:03:11 Speaker 1
Let’s be honest about we really goofed here, he said.
00:03:13 Speaker 1
I don’t know where.
00:03:14 Speaker 1
The The thing is, he said, where we just got into this tape business and.
00:03:19 Speaker 1
What have you and?
00:03:21 Speaker 2
The principle is that it really wasn’t embarrassing.
00:03:23 Speaker 2
Said Smith limited.
00:03:25 Speaker 1
So the time went on for quite, you know, we were a little embarrassed about it, and next day we were.
00:03:32 Speaker 1
Perhaps it was on the Sunday, I don’t remember, but we ran the whole hour of the the thing, you know.
00:03:40 Speaker 1
And including all the speeches or most of the speeches that were made, and then we got a letter from the.
00:03:48 Speaker 1
One of his staff, I forget what his official capacity was, Dennis, saying that the Princess really enjoyed this, that they had got back on the train, this being about 5:00 o’clock that they wound up at the park and they’re back in the train.
00:04:04 Speaker 1
And and I guess they were having their dinner and listening to the local station.
00:04:09 Speaker 1
And this came up, you know, and he was just absolutely laughed and laughed and laughed.
00:04:16 Speaker 1
He thought that was a tremendous joke and that he wanted us to know how much he appreciated, you know.
00:04:24 Speaker 1
The little error was made when have you and I thought that was.
00:04:28 Speaker 1
I wish I had that letter.
00:04:30 Speaker 1
Now I don’t know where it would be.
00:04:33 Speaker 1
But those type of things were common, you know.
00:04:36 Speaker 2
That was the that was that would be the print.
00:04:38 Speaker 2
The Prince and Princess, not the king.
00:04:39 Speaker 2
And not the king and queen.
00:04:40 Speaker 1
No, no, this was no, this was uh.
00:04:44 Speaker 1
In 1949, yeah, 49, yeah.
00:04:49 Speaker 2
Uh, that’s a good.
00:04:50 Speaker 2
Story too.
00:04:51 Speaker 2
Ohh the one the other.
00:04:52 Speaker 2
One I remember that I wanted.
00:04:53 Speaker 2
To pick up was the.
00:04:56 Speaker 2
The story about the the location broadcast of the the addition to train service for CBC News.
00:05:06 Speaker 2
And they asked.
00:05:06 Speaker 2
You to do a special report for CBC News.
00:05:10 Speaker 1
When they changed over from dropping the network, it was it.
00:05:14 Speaker 2
No, it was about the it’s kind.
00:05:16 Speaker 1
All the trains.
00:05:17 Speaker 2
Of train service.
00:05:17 Speaker 1
Oh, yeah, that was embarrassing.
00:05:18 Speaker 2
And the tunnel.
00:05:20 Speaker 1
The well, they in those days, the CBC used to have various news clips in the national news and we supplied quite a few of them, Dennis.
00:05:31 Speaker 1
And then this particular case.
00:05:33 Speaker 1
They were widening the tunnels because the CPR were starting in their new Canadian passenger train, and evidently the cars sway more or something, and they had to widen the tunnel a bit to make sure that they would be, you know, the cars would get through there without scraping the wall.
00:05:53 Speaker 1
So this was just, uh, was to town here.
00:05:58 Speaker 1
10 or 12 miles, I guess in West of town so.
00:06:01 Speaker 1
They want a story on this.
00:06:03 Speaker 1
So we, Walter Harwood and I and so can’t think of the other fellow we raise without the CPR and we got a.
00:06:13 Speaker 1
Motor speeder on the track and went down and was our equipment and.
00:06:17 Speaker 1
And inverter to get our electricity.
00:06:22 Speaker 1
To run the thing.
00:06:23 Speaker 1
And uh, it was all right, but it just doesn’t sound quite right, you know.
00:06:31 Speaker 1
So we we brought it back and we we listened to the thing we said.
00:06:35 Speaker 1
Well, you know it’s really.
00:06:37 Speaker 1
Not too interesting clip. I think it was a minute and 1/2 altogether.
00:06:41 Speaker 1
It wasn’t a long clip.
00:06:45 Speaker 1
Honored said.
00:06:46 Speaker 1
You know, I think what we’ll do.
00:06:47 Speaker 1
Let’s go up to your place, Ian and and we’ll start outside.
00:06:51 Speaker 1
We’ll walk into the basement and from there into this fruit room your wife has under the stair.
00:06:56 Speaker 1
And because it’s gone, nothing but echo, boom, boom, you know, now sound more like it.
00:07:02 Speaker 1
So up we go and and.
00:07:07 Speaker 1
We started on the outside of the place and described the what the tunnel looked like, and then we moved into the basement and you could tear a towel, a different quality, you know, and the basement.
00:07:19 Speaker 1
And then we sort of walked slowly into the this room where they spent room where all the food was stored.
00:07:27 Speaker 1
And that really saw, like a Tony.
00:07:30 Speaker 1
Nice, breezy, boomy voice, you know.
00:07:35 Speaker 1
And we took it back and we listened to it.
00:07:37 Speaker 1
We said, oh, that’s that’s the thing.
00:07:39 Speaker 1
So we got that fed down to the network and.
00:07:42 Speaker 1
And that night at 6:00 o’clock or 7:00 o’clock or 7:00 o’clock news.
00:07:47 Speaker 1
They on came and it sounded very good.
00:07:51 Speaker 1
Water phoned me up from his home, he said.
00:07:53 Speaker 1
You’ve been listening, I said yeah, he said.
00:07:54 Speaker 1
He said that’s all really good.
00:07:56 Speaker 1
Then then I said yeah.
00:07:57 Speaker 1
Really surprised.
00:07:59 Speaker 1
Well, it was quite some time before.
00:08:02 Speaker 1
Oh, gosh, it could have been months afterwards before I met the chap who was in charge of this new Toronto.
00:08:09 Speaker 1
And I won’t mention his name.
00:08:11 Speaker 1
I don’t think that would be fair.
00:08:13 Speaker 1
And he said to me, we, you know, on that news clip left in the tunnels, that was very interesting.
00:08:21 Speaker 1
And I said, tell me always very nice.
00:08:25 Speaker 1
How do you like the weather here in Vancouver?
00:08:28 Speaker 1
You know, do you like all the screens?
00:08:31 Speaker 1
Well, I don’t know whether about the ring, but tell me what was involved?
00:08:34 Speaker 1
And I said, well, we got on speeder.
00:08:36 Speaker 1
We went down to the tunnel.
00:08:39 Speaker 1
But you know, I said in Vancouver in the springtime, in the summertime, you couldn’t find a nicer place than you could find here.
00:08:44 Speaker 1
The sun of all the beautiful water and the oil islands and what have you.
00:08:48 Speaker 1
And he kept coming back to this night.
00:08:50 Speaker 1
Couldn’t get him off of the talk.
00:08:53 Speaker 1
So finally I up and confessed and you never had a guy.
00:08:57 Speaker 1
You went up one side of Maine down the other.
00:08:59 Speaker 1
He was just manner and Hoffs.
00:09:02 Speaker 1
He had no sense of humor.
00:09:06 Speaker 2
Did that ever happen again?
00:09:08 Speaker 2
Did you ever hear anything about people staging these things?
00:09:11 Speaker 1
No, we never staged that.
00:09:14 Speaker 1
As far as the network was concerned, that’s the only thing we ever staged, never staged in any of the others at all.
00:09:22 Speaker 1
They after that I would be scared to death to stage anything.
00:09:30 Speaker 2
That’s something you couldn’t do with television, though.
00:09:34 Speaker 1
Well, in TV.
00:09:36 Speaker 1
Find you in the early days of TV the we were shooting film here for the CBC on TV before the TV station was here, in fact before.
00:09:48 Speaker 1
The TV station in Vancouver, before CPUT came on the air.
00:09:52 Speaker 1
And we used a bell and hull 16 millimeter, which wasn’t sound on film, just straight pictures.
00:10:01 Speaker 1
And we sent the story along with it.
00:10:05 Speaker 2
And how how would you give it to them?
00:10:06 Speaker 2
Because you wouldn’t have any facilities to to transmit it to them, you’d.
00:10:10 Speaker 2
Have to send it in the minute.
00:10:11 Speaker 1
Yeah, I sent it by the afternoon airplane, you know, or by air.
00:10:14 Speaker 2
Oh, I see.
00:10:17 Speaker 1
And Gene Ross, who was my secretary at that time and she was exceptionally good at taking pictures. She was exceptionally good in 1000 different ways, but she was particularly good and taking pictures, and she did the shooting and, you know, they in those days, hockey was quite a hot item here. The Allen Cup playoffs and so on.
00:10:38 Speaker 1
And various other things up in the Caribou.
00:10:40 Speaker 1
She travel all over the interior shooting film.
00:10:44 Speaker 1
And I think perhaps the biggest single thing which she did was the last sailing of the Lady Mental on.
00:10:51 Speaker 1
The arrow leaf.
00:10:56 Speaker 1
We went over to from Revelstoke down to Arrowhead.
00:11:02 Speaker 1
I think it’s called.
00:11:03 Speaker 1
And the boat was there and on the further left ceiling, you know?
00:11:10 Speaker 1
She got some just beautiful pictures, some on the ship and some from the shore.
00:11:19 Speaker 1
And they over there, the countries of Spain.
00:11:22 Speaker 1
So that ran, I think about 3 minutes in that one and uh, the Columbia Broadcasting system carried across the line.
00:11:33 Speaker 1
I think that was perhaps the highlight of it.
00:11:37 Speaker 2
I wonder where where would all this come of end up?
00:11:39 Speaker 2
Would you got it back up here or would they?
00:11:40 Speaker 2
Would the CBC have hung onto it?
00:11:42 Speaker 1
No, they supplied us with the film.
00:11:45 Speaker 1
And they always kept us well stocked, and we just sent the shot.
00:11:48 Speaker 1
The film sent it in to them.
00:11:50 Speaker 2
And they would the finished film, they would have hung on to down down there.
00:11:54 Speaker 1
That’s right, yeah.
00:11:55 Speaker 2
Well, I hope that I hope I can turn up the stuff, because interestingly enough, another project I’m doing for the archives.
00:12:00 Speaker 2
I’m I’m doing research on on on any film.
00:12:03 Speaker 2
Footage that’s been.
00:12:03 Speaker 2
Shot of British Columbia.
00:12:04 Speaker 2
They’ve been put together.
00:12:05 Speaker 2
A big book listing all this stuff, so I’m sure I’ll be coming across if she did.
00:12:07 Speaker 1
Oh yes.
00:12:10 Speaker 2
That much work.
00:12:11 Speaker 2
For you some of it.
00:12:11 Speaker 1
Yes, she Gene did a lot of work on that, Dennis, they.
00:12:20 Speaker 1
I don’t know whether I’d have any record of it or not.
00:12:25 Speaker 2
Hopefully it’s something that the CDC would have the foresight to save.
00:12:28 Speaker 2
And put into.
00:12:29 Speaker 1
Their archives well, mind you, in those days or as I say, no one wasn’t sound on the film.
00:12:36 Speaker 1
So they they may have carried it, kept it or they may have not.
00:12:41 Speaker 2
Well, we’ll certainly have to check on it.
00:12:44 Speaker 2
Check on this.
00:12:51 Speaker 2
You mentioned, I think it was yesterday when I was talking to you that.
00:12:55 Speaker 2
When Mr. Dunton was involved with the CBC that you were here at the time, were you, you were in in 1936.
00:13:02 Speaker 1
No, I wasn’t. I didn’t come here till 1940.
00:13:06 Speaker 2
Yeah, but you mentioned something about Mr.
00:13:10 Speaker 2
Dunn being involved with the stations.
00:13:12 Speaker 2
Power being increased.
00:13:13 Speaker 2
Was that when the station went?
00:13:14 Speaker 1
On the network.
00:13:15 Speaker 1
Yeah, well, that’s when.
00:13:16 Speaker 1
He took over.
00:13:18 Speaker 1
When Prime Minister Mackenzie King requested him to head up.
00:13:24 Speaker 1
The new we head up the National service.
00:13:28 Speaker 1
And no, you mean, I’m just surmising this part that Mister Dunton said, well, fine.
00:13:34 Speaker 1
I’ll then look at the whole thing.
00:13:36 Speaker 1
Let me study it for a month or two and so on and out of that, he said.
00:13:41 Speaker 1
Well, no.
00:13:42 Speaker 1
And then over British Columbia, we’ve got to get to our basic.
00:13:47 Speaker 1
The basic network set up and it will consist of a station in Vancouver.
00:13:52 Speaker 1
And three interior stations CJT at trail Cko V and Cologne, and CFDC at camp.
00:14:01 Speaker 1
So he came along and I believe Mr.
00:14:03 Speaker 1
C Howe was with them and spoke to Mr.
00:14:07 Speaker 1
Brown clone and to the Eric Allen was over trail at that time.
00:14:12 Speaker 1
And to Mr.
00:14:14 Speaker 1
Ralph White here and said, now look, we want you people to become a member and affiliates of our new network.
00:14:22 Speaker 1
And uh.
00:14:23 Speaker 1
We want you to increase your power from 100 watts up to 1000 watts so that greater coverage can be given.
00:14:35 Speaker 1
The out of that came the the three stations did increase power to 1000 watts and they became the BASIC affiliated stations of the CBC network.
00:14:47 Speaker 1
In British Columbia.
00:14:55 Speaker 1
Stations the three stations remained on the network.
00:15:01 Speaker 1
From that day until after TV was introduced and started to affect radio seriously.
00:15:09 Speaker 1
So they over the years they 3 remain basic stations for at least 20 years.
00:15:16 Speaker 2
Would the CBC have contributed to the cost of increasing 2 kilowatt?
00:15:21 Speaker 1
I think that perhaps that we’re prepared to do that, I don’t know. Just uh, this was back in in 1936.
00:15:31 Speaker 1
And uh not being here, I couldn’t really say yes to that, but I would think they were prepared to assist the stations to increase their power, I would think.
00:15:40 Speaker 1
That is true.
00:15:41 Speaker 2
In the interview with Lori Irving, he mentions that.
00:15:45 Speaker 2
That when he came up here.
00:15:46 Speaker 2
They were involved in building the killerwatt.
00:15:49 Speaker 1
Yes, yes, they built this 1000 Watt transmitter and.
00:15:55 Speaker 1
They they did a good job on it but.
00:16:00 Speaker 1
There were a lot of problems.
00:16:01 Speaker 1
There were in the, you know, I won’t say much more, but I’ll just say this.
00:16:07 Speaker 1
It was a linked coupled operation and uh, as I said before, they had a motor generator to generate the DC current and.
00:16:18 Speaker 1
But it at the time served a useful purpose and.
00:16:23 Speaker 2
Is that the one you announced you used to electrocute the mugs.
00:16:25 Speaker 1
Oh yeah, they did all kinds of things.
00:16:28 Speaker 1
With that thing.
00:16:33 Speaker 2
And that put the station off the air.
00:16:34 Speaker 2
That time didn’t.
00:16:35 Speaker 2
It, yeah.
00:16:43 Speaker 2
When you hear the phrase, I guess we coming into this period, the Golden Age of.
00:16:48 Speaker 2
Radio what?
00:16:49 Speaker 2
What comes to mind?
00:16:51 Speaker 1
Well, in my opinion, the Golden Age of radio was from 1937.
00:17:02 Speaker 1
I would say.
00:17:03 Speaker 1
In 1958, in the interior.
00:17:08 Speaker 1
TV came in 57, but the radio still held on for a while, but then TV and I don’t think TV in the daytime didn’t do too much harm to radio.
00:17:20 Speaker 1
But at nighttime I just chewed all the pieces and uh, you know, I think radio today is still strong in the daytime.
00:17:28 Speaker 1
But Dennis?
00:17:30 Speaker 1
I’m not too sure tonight that the radio you can.
00:17:34 Speaker 1
It’s a small audience you’re catering to because the TV’s, on the other hand, Dennis, I think that the they they use, you know, I I may sound biased here, but I I think that they’re the radio is going to come back into the front room again, especially with the coming of FN, the FM stereo.
00:17:54 Speaker 1
Network. Good quality reproduction.
00:17:57 Speaker 1
In town here, I would say that today 50% of the homes have FM receivers, AM FM receivers and good quality.
00:18:11 Speaker 1
Reproduction back in the delivering room again.
00:18:14 Speaker 2
Of course, of that would law that would depend on the type of programming that’s carried, what what programs were there in this Golden Age that that that were popular?
00:18:24 Speaker 2
Come to mind.
00:18:26 Speaker 1
Oh, and there were just so many, you know, the CB.
00:18:31 Speaker 1
See here and I think 18 of the top 20 American programs, Jack, Benny and George Burns and Fred Allen Relux radio theater.
00:18:48 Speaker 1
Difficult for me to recall them all, but they had all the top programs and then we had some very good programs in our own country share the wealth and.
00:19:00 Speaker 1
Oh, love them nationally sponsored.
00:19:04 Speaker 1
Oh, and of course the happy.
00:19:05 Speaker 1
Gang, you know.
00:19:06 Speaker 2
Was there ever any any?
00:19:09 Speaker 2
Of course, this is an ongoing controversy, but was there any controversy at the time over the idea of CDC carrying so many?
00:19:15 Speaker 2
American radio program.
00:19:17 Speaker 1
No, not at all.
00:19:19 Speaker 1
No, they were very welcome.
00:19:21 Speaker 2
Were there Canadian content?
00:19:23 Speaker 2
Regulations at the top.
00:19:23 Speaker 1
No, no kind of, no content regulations, no.
00:19:28 Speaker 1
No, if I’m not mistaken, the CBC, one year after year after year, the recognition as the finest network in the world in the free world.
00:19:43 Speaker 1
They really, gosh, in whom there was number need to tune in the American shows because you get the top American shows.
00:19:49 Speaker 1
There’s no need to tune in the pardon me, the BBC you’ve got, you got you nothing.
00:19:55 Speaker 1
Mind you, they didn’t carry much from the BBC.
00:19:57 Speaker 1
The BBC News was on 9:00 o’clock in the morning.
00:20:01 Speaker 1
But they just took all the top programs and mixed them.
00:20:05 Speaker 1
With their own.
00:20:06 Speaker 1
And that happy gang?
00:20:07 Speaker 1
And you mean the and the soap operas were very popular, you know?
00:20:11 Speaker 1
Gosh, we have every carried our share soap operas too.
00:20:17 Speaker 2
Well, in those days I imagine that the phrase soap opera was not so derogatory.
00:20:20 Speaker 2
As it is now.
00:20:21 Speaker 2
When people said soap opera.
00:20:21 Speaker 1
No, no different type of thing.
00:20:24 Speaker 1
I think we carried seven of them Monday through Friday and then we had people like Keith Aitken and to other national programs that were.
00:20:35 Speaker 1
Were live most of the time they some when she was here in town.
00:20:41 Speaker 1
We fed the network from here, who had its feet already because of the time difference in the, you know, across the country.
00:20:48 Speaker 1
But I think they go on and there’s a radio where we’re unmatched, Dennis.
00:21:00 Speaker 2
Radiohead, an important place in the home then that.
00:21:03 Speaker 1
Oh, very much so.
00:21:04 Speaker 1
Very much so.
00:21:06 Speaker 1
And it was the type of service, you know, that was different from what we have today.
00:21:13 Speaker 1
You know, if if some child was missing on the street, you didn’t wait until the end of the program.
00:21:19 Speaker 1
You faded down.
00:21:20 Speaker 1
Say we’ve been informed that a little boy dressed in blue jeans and so on was last seen in such and such.
00:21:27 Speaker 1
Anybody having seen the little lad really phone such and such number or the RCMP?
00:21:33 Speaker 1
Such and such number you know, and this was quite an accepted thing.
00:21:39 Speaker 1
You were providing a broadcast.
00:21:41 Speaker 1
You know the people out in the far out in the reaches where there is no telephone you would have during a morning broadcast, community bulletin board or I forget the name we had wasn’t any event you would say we have an announcement.
00:22:01 Speaker 1
Back to Mr.
00:22:02 Speaker 1
and Mrs.
00:22:03 Speaker 1
so and so and Lackland.
00:22:06 Speaker 1
Something way out in the Colton Country.
00:22:10 Speaker 1
Your or Mr.
00:22:12 Speaker 1
And so your wife had a baby boy at 4:00 o’clock this morning.
00:22:16 Speaker 1
And uh, or we would have a message to somebody away up in the N Thompson that had no telephone that we have been advised that the their son will be on the train on the Canadian National train on the Vancouver this evening would be passing through.
00:22:37 Speaker 1
2:30 in the morning.
00:22:39 Speaker 1
At this particular point, and that this again would stop and let him off, you know, and this type of thing we we went in for much more Community service.
00:22:50 Speaker 1
And I think gave out.
00:22:53 Speaker 1
I don’t want to criticize the broadcasting stations today, but there there was a personal touch to the thing.
00:23:02 Speaker 2
They weren’t.
00:23:02 Speaker 2
They weren’t afraid of of.
00:23:04 Speaker 2
Of that kind of.
00:23:05 Speaker 2
Well, Williams Lake, they’re I think they’re.
00:23:06 Speaker 2
Still doing that?
00:23:07 Speaker 2
From what I hear, period.
00:23:07 Speaker 1
Well, yes, the CK the Caribou radio network.
00:23:11 Speaker 1
I think we’re still doing that type of thing.
00:23:14 Speaker 1
And uh, you know, in our news they uh if some youngster got into trouble and you know, we and we as far as we would go we would say that the last evening that there was a break in at such such place and.
00:23:34 Speaker 1
Cigarettes or soft drinks were taken and that the matter was being dispensed with whatever were dispensed with.
00:23:44 Speaker 1
I never understood what that word meant, but it didn’t say any.
00:23:48 Speaker 1
And nobody bothered. You know, we didn’t save us. And John Jones’s son or so. And so it wasn’t. You mean you weren’t there to do anything but help people?
00:24:00 Speaker 2
Right.
00:24:01 Speaker 1
You didn’t try that to you then to make the news sensational at all.
00:24:08 Speaker 2
You mentioned a couple of times that talking about the advent of television.
00:24:12 Speaker 2
I’m very interested in.
00:24:14 Speaker 2
When television started to come in, when, when?
00:24:16 Speaker 2
When people started to become.
00:24:18 Speaker 2
Aware of television?
00:24:20 Speaker 2
What was the attitude of the people?
00:24:22 Speaker 2
In the industry in general towards television.
00:24:25 Speaker 1
Well, one of acceptance, they said, well, you know, it’s a new development and because we’ve got to get into it.
00:24:35 Speaker 1
And there was reluctance on some people, they said. Well, it’s sure TV’s all right in the big cities, but in a place like campus and.
00:24:45 Speaker 1
Colon and Prince George and these similarly sized towns.
00:24:49 Speaker 1
That’s you know.
00:24:52 Speaker 1
Long, long ways down the road, you know.
00:24:55 Speaker 1
You know the but in the larger centers, you know that’s the thing and that’s going to affect radio all right, to a degree where we’re going to lose a lot of advertising dollars and big good advertisers are going to be sponsoring programs on TV.
00:25:12 Speaker 1
And we’re going to lose that revenue and.
00:25:14 Speaker 1
And eventually we did lose it.
00:25:18 Speaker 1
Big programs on off radio and on the TV.
00:25:22 Speaker 1
But Dennis there, which was I think I was telling you there was number hope fears in small towns having TV or their own because they’re first of all, there was the difficulty of getting the use of VHF frequencies.
00:25:37 Speaker 1
And I was telling you about to that I don’t need to repeat that again.
00:25:41 Speaker 1
But it’s in our country.
00:25:44 Speaker 1
Fortunately, we had Mr.
00:25:47 Speaker 1
And back in the early 50s, I remember meeting in Vancouver with Mr.
00:25:52 Speaker 1
Dunn and the other Affiliates and he said, well, you know, we’ve just got to get into this TV.
00:25:58 Speaker 1
What will try to shoot for?
00:26:01 Speaker 1
We’ve got two networks, the Trans Canada network, and we’ve got the Dominion Network coast to coast.
00:26:06 Speaker 1
We’re covering on and we’re covering 99.5% of the people of Canada with one radio network or the other, or combined. Of the two, I think the Trans Canada network.
00:26:18 Speaker 1
I guess then had the the eight 50,000 Watt stations on was covering the country very well.
00:26:25 Speaker 1
And the you know, the I don’t think CBLT was even going in that in 52, but I may be wrong there. I think they got going 54 and they but I’m not sure that maybe I’m wrong.
00:26:40 Speaker 1
But the hope for in a small town like Ken Roofs and Cambridge was the small town.
00:26:50 Speaker 1
About 16,000 people here, I think in the time.
00:26:55 Speaker 1
And it certainly didn’t look like it could be done and.
00:27:02 Speaker 1
I think should be said and I I don’t want this to appear as boasting that they we were the only people that thought, well, gosh, we’ll we’ll make a try on this thing.
00:27:12 Speaker 1
And to see if we can establish a TV station in the small town.
00:27:17 Speaker 1
And that’s what ultimately happened on this will be our 25th year, the CFDC TV.
00:27:25 Speaker 1
Has been on the air on April the 7th of this year.
00:27:29 Speaker 1
And I think then the next season after that was down in Kelowna and that came on.
00:27:38 Speaker 1
Perhaps a year or so two later and then Prince George came on, and it was a number of years after that, and the trail never didn’t move on it.
00:27:50 Speaker 1
The CBC eventually provides service into Trail Inland area.
00:27:55 Speaker 1
Now, one of the things that happened we we started here as I was saying to you yesterday.
00:28:01 Speaker 1
Dennis, they we were, it was a Mickey Mouse arrangement.
00:28:09 Speaker 1
But it had to be because we didn’t have the funds to do anything really big. And I was saying we are our 500 Watt each transmitter, we only get 50 watts on the air.
00:28:23 Speaker 1
Can I just digress here and tell his story the day we open the TV station here in Camp Loop, say our studios were over a block away from here.
00:28:34 Speaker 1
And the transmitter in the basement.
00:28:36 Speaker 1
The antenna up on the tower on the roof.
00:28:39 Speaker 1
And Mr.
00:28:41 Speaker 1
Kenneth Cable, the regional director of the CBC, was here and to officially declare the station open and.
00:28:47 Speaker 1
We had over here in the Plaza Hotel, just turned down the way here in the blue room.
00:28:52 Speaker 1
We had TV sets set up courtesy of all the merchants in town who had brought in the TV set.
00:28:58 Speaker 1
And all tuned to Channel 4, of course, and.
00:29:04 Speaker 1
We invited the merchants and the Heads of State, as it were, to be in the tenants, and there was a tremendous crowd there. When I say tremendous, maybe 400.
00:29:15 Speaker 1
And that morning we were busy at the studio getting things set up and for an evening to have all these people in the evening and interview them and talk with.
00:29:29 Speaker 1
We are going to run CBC films in between and then then this station is due to open at 3:00 o’clock.
00:29:36 Speaker 1
So Fred Weber and Fred Weber, you know, if you can get a hold of Fred Weber, he is just a tremendous man and he’s.
00:29:45 Speaker 1
He’s just a fantastic person.
00:29:47 Speaker 1
The Lord never blessed anybody in the way he blessed Fred Weber.
00:29:51 Speaker 1
He’s confident in every way.
00:29:52 Speaker 1
He he built his own car and built his own house.
00:29:55 Speaker 1
He can do anything.
00:29:56 Speaker 1
Just no answer.
00:29:58 Speaker 1
Marvelous man.
00:29:59 Speaker 1
He was the engineer here and.
00:30:01 Speaker 1
We couldn’t afford these clean lights. So you had a system using ordinary 100 Watt bulb.
Part 2
Transcript
00:00:03 Speaker 1
So in any event, I get over the blue moon.
00:00:08 Speaker 1
Cable was with me and.
00:00:10 Speaker 1
How we go and I introduced him to a few of the people who were standing around and others mayor and so on.
00:00:21 Speaker 1
And the fellow tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned around, he said.
00:00:24 Speaker 1
It’s going to see you, man.
00:00:25 Speaker 1
So I step back and they system doesn’t work.
00:00:30 Speaker 1
And I said to him, well, they he said we we tried the button that doesn’t respond.
00:00:36 Speaker 1
So I said to him, I’ll get a man to follow the stairs and man the tallest stairs.
00:00:39 Speaker 1
Another guy in the payphone.
00:00:41 Speaker 1
So as soon as he pushes the button on, just nod my head.
00:00:45 Speaker 1
And did you nod your head and to follow on the telephone and say let her go, you see?
00:00:52 Speaker 1
So all is going well and Mr.
00:00:55 Speaker 1
Capel starts his talking says that explaining the thing and how delighted he is to be here to officially declare the station on the air.
00:01:06 Speaker 1
By pressing you that he would pressing the buttons the.
00:01:10 Speaker 1
The pictures would come on the screen for the first time.
00:01:15 Speaker 1
And he did a very nice job on it.
00:01:17 Speaker 1
And as he reached pushed the button, I thought in my.
00:01:19 Speaker 1
Head and the.
00:01:19 Speaker 1
Guy at the stairs said they know the.
00:01:21 Speaker 1
Thank you.
00:01:22 Speaker 1
Stairs and hey, Lego.
00:01:26 Speaker 1
Everybody turned to look.
00:01:27 Speaker 1
See what the?
00:01:28 Speaker 1
Hell is going on.
00:01:29 Speaker 1
Well, by this time the guy had got on the telephone and of course the screens came.
00:01:34 Speaker 1
On what have you.
00:01:36 Speaker 1
One of these things has.
00:01:38 Speaker 2
So did he actually press the button or?
00:01:39 Speaker 1
Oh yeah, he pressed the button, sends, he pressed the button on my head and but I didn’t.
00:01:44 Speaker 1
I thought these powers, but just, you know, nod their head.
00:01:47 Speaker 1
Let her go, they say.
00:01:53 Speaker 2
OK.
00:01:53 Speaker 2
We were talking about television.
00:01:57 Speaker 2
So that station open when?
00:01:59 Speaker 1
In 1957, April 7.
00:02:04 Speaker 2
What relation would that have been?
00:02:06 Speaker 2
The second station in BC?
00:02:08 Speaker 1
Yeah, the CPU TI think we were on the air by that time you asked CPU.
00:02:14 Speaker 1
Yes, or 54.
00:02:17 Speaker 2
Not sure I can check on that.
00:02:18 Speaker 2
We have an interview with any rules.
00:02:19 Speaker 2
And he was, of course involved.
00:02:22 Speaker 1
Then Dennis, they we eventually got sufficient funds to.
00:02:28 Speaker 1
Be able to move our transmitter to a site up on what’s called the Mount Dufferin West of town and quite a high peaking up there and.
00:02:41 Speaker 1
And that extend the coverage to quite an area.
00:02:45 Speaker 1
No, don’t places like Ashcroft and most of the communities are all situated in the in the ball of the mountains, you know, and you can get the station up and tall.
00:02:58 Speaker 1
The mountains like Adam.
00:03:00 Speaker 1
But you know you couldn’t get them down below.
00:03:04 Speaker 1
So with the we decide that we would see if we could put in the rebroadcasting station at Ashcroft and on the mountain side where we could pick it up and break it down into town using 5 Watt.
00:03:18 Speaker 1
Well, now they there was no provision, there was no such thing as TV rebroadcasting stations.
00:03:24 Speaker 1
And they said, well, you can’t do this.
00:03:26 Speaker 1
So Mr.
00:03:27 Speaker 1
Dunn came along and said, you know, I think, you know, you’ve got an idea there.
00:03:31 Speaker 1
Move ahead with.
00:03:32 Speaker 1
And he said to I’ll speak to the Department of Transport and just on experimental.
00:03:38 Speaker 1
So the first TV rebroadcasting season in the world was down Ashcroft.
00:03:43 Speaker 1
And it worked for like a darn.
00:03:45 Speaker 2
The first one in the world.
00:03:48 Speaker 1
When the free world in any event.
00:03:50 Speaker 1
So then the people up on the curb would, they said, oh, aren’t cops, got TV?
00:03:55 Speaker 1
We want TV in the Caribou and married, want TV.
00:04:00 Speaker 1
So we had a real field day there getting this thing in.
00:04:03 Speaker 1
And and we put, you know, rebroadcasting stations in the to.
00:04:10 Speaker 1
We put one in at Clinton’s.
00:04:13 Speaker 1
On lime Mount, which is a very high mountains and we put one in at Mount Timothy at 100 Mile House and then one of Williams Lake and one at Cornell.
00:04:26 Speaker 1
One over at Merritt and so on.
00:04:29 Speaker 1
And I’m telling you that.
00:04:31 Speaker 1
You know the the cooperation we got from the people, if it weren’t for their cooperation, it would have been done.
00:04:38 Speaker 1
But they were just wonderful cooperation from these communities out to chase out here.
00:04:44 Speaker 1
They want TV else there.
00:04:45 Speaker 1
And I said, you know.
00:04:47 Speaker 1
We’re just absolutely swamped.
00:04:50 Speaker 1
First of all we you know, if the the only place that we can promptly put in the TV and it stays in the chase is up in Adams Hill and then if we cover Adams Lake and would cover the shoe Swamp lake and would cover chase.
00:05:04 Speaker 1
But there’s no power up there and there’s no Rd.
00:05:06 Speaker 1
up there.
00:05:08 Speaker 1
01 fellow art holding said to me he was the owner of the big Millet at Adams Lake. He said I’ll have 100 men out on Sunday morning. I’ll have machinery there. We’ll push through the road.
00:05:24 Speaker 1
Gosh, you know, they pushed through their road and we took the power up the.
00:05:29 Speaker 1
On the cable updates and the laying it on the ground to supply with power.
00:05:34 Speaker 1
And donned letten in places like that.
00:05:37 Speaker 1
It was that dog, honest, haywire arrangement you ever saw.
00:05:40 Speaker 1
And I don’t mind admitting it.
00:05:43 Speaker 1
The we we used to tap little streams, we had little generators in these streams that generate 100 watts of power.
00:05:51 Speaker 1
And they we had to leave the one line just on the ground. And sometimes where these lines went 04 and five miles.
00:06:00 Speaker 1
Just laying on the ground, but there was nobody around, no roads, no opening at all.
00:06:05 Speaker 1
We were.
00:06:07 Speaker 1
Didn’t hang them on trees or anything else leading the ground.
00:06:09 Speaker 1
Well, then the animals got in.
00:06:11 Speaker 1
They liked the salt and the kite, and then they type of wire or cable that we were using and they would get in, chew it up.
00:06:17 Speaker 1
And so we had to keep changing.
00:06:19 Speaker 1
Finally, we found the type of cable that and any salt that attracted Beavers or muskrats or anything else.
00:06:28 Speaker 1
And we got by on these things, but that’s how TV got going and spread throughout the interior.
00:06:35 Speaker 2
Because the people would want to bring it into their communities so that they would have.
00:06:40 Speaker 1
You know.
00:06:40 Speaker 1
You know, we just didn’t.
00:06:42 Speaker 1
I think the cost was 4000 bucks for each of these to putting in each of these little 5 Watt unit things.
00:06:49 Speaker 2
Really, that’s all.
00:06:50 Speaker 1
You know and.
00:06:52 Speaker 1
They, you know, the banker was very good and he said, well, you know, you’re into the bank for so many dollars now.
00:07:00 Speaker 1
And Gee, I do.
00:07:01 Speaker 1
So then we got the bank convinced that we would put up half the money as the communities would put up the other half.
00:07:08 Speaker 1
And I remember when we first started down Ashcroft, we went down there in the Sunday afternoon, big meeting in Ashcroft.
00:07:14 Speaker 1
Guys are people there from all over, from all over the little community.
00:07:19 Speaker 1
I always like what the lay of the land was and somebody got up in the audience.
00:07:22 Speaker 1
Well, Mr.
00:07:24 Speaker 1
Chairman, will you ask Mr.
00:07:25 Speaker 1
Clark whether he would like to be excused?
00:07:29 Speaker 1
So I left.
00:07:30 Speaker 1
I’m sorry I got back to campus and they had oversubscribed the money.
00:07:34 Speaker 1
There’s so much money and they subscribed that afternoon that they were able to put.
00:07:37 Speaker 1
The TV sets in.
00:07:39 Speaker 1
My Lady mental hospital down there.
00:07:43 Speaker 1
Wherever the name of the hospital is, you know, and this is the type of thing these people are really gone.
00:07:48 Speaker 1
Fall out, and if I were to tell you some of the things that went on, you just wouldn’t.
00:07:53 Speaker 1
Believe them.
00:07:54 Speaker 1
How it’s time as we closed highways, moving snow poles and so on, and the RCMP.
00:08:01 Speaker 1
Cooperated the Canadian National cooperated.
00:08:03 Speaker 1
There’s cooperation all the way along.
00:08:06 Speaker 1
They people just won’t take no for an answer now one been possible had it not been for Mr.
00:08:11 Speaker 1
Dunton who came in and said, fine, do these things now the specifications for these things were and it takes about two years to draw them.
00:08:21 Speaker 1
So we were, you know, he said fine.
00:08:24 Speaker 1
But after they are drawn, you will have so many years after that.
00:08:28 Speaker 1
Convert up to the specifications they require, but in the meantime, let’s get going.
00:08:32 Speaker 1
Let’s get Canadians Canadian TV.
00:08:35 Speaker 1
That’s our job.
00:08:38 Speaker 1
I remember up at the chocolate and the people up there wanted in some vast area up there.
00:08:43 Speaker 1
Way out, you know, way out in the places.
00:08:46 Speaker 1
So we said, well, we can do that providing we can get a boost in power. Now. We were on Channel 5 up there and we’ll Seattle station KIRO visit on channel.
00:08:58 Speaker 1
We would cause them.
00:09:01 Speaker 1
Well, well, whatever I I don’t recall one of the Seattle states, but we would have caused some interference in.
00:09:10 Speaker 1
By your operating 500 watts. Because we’re up on the top of a tall mountain at Mount Timothy there.
00:09:17 Speaker 1
So we knew that they would oppose this and you know, it has to go through the FCC across the line as well as through the Department of Transport in our.
00:09:25 Speaker 1
But Mr.
00:09:26 Speaker 1
Dunn, he was just in there.
00:09:27 Speaker 1
He just backed us up solidly.
00:09:29 Speaker 1
He was out to provide Canadians with Canadian radio and Canadian TV.
00:09:36 Speaker 2
So you were CFCC.
00:09:38 Speaker 2
Television and was.
00:09:40 Speaker 2
Was a local affiliate of CDC.
00:09:43 Speaker 1
Hello from the very beginning.
00:09:45 Speaker 2
How much local programming would you have carried on?
00:09:48 Speaker 2
Television in those.
00:09:48 Speaker 1
Dirty days?
00:09:49 Speaker 1
Well, we we used to come on at 12 noon and all our programs begin with whereby kinescope or by film.
00:10:01 Speaker 1
And we had 1/2 hours woman show.
00:10:06 Speaker 1
3:00 to 3:30 we had another show.
00:10:12 Speaker 1
4:30 to five, we had six to.
00:10:16 Speaker 1
7 Where is our local programming and then network through for the rest of the evening?
00:10:21 Speaker 2
Now the the.
00:10:22 Speaker 2
When you say that the.
00:10:24 Speaker 2
The local programming, would that have been?
00:10:26 Speaker 2
Live studio stuff.
00:10:27 Speaker 1
Yeah, like studio stuff.
00:10:29 Speaker 1
Now the you know, I must admit this to you, they we only had one camera.
00:10:35 Speaker 1
We couldn’t farted two cameras.
00:10:37 Speaker 1
And oftentimes, we had square dances and so on, and we just couldn’t get them in the studio.
00:10:44 Speaker 1
So the mayor came loose the time Mayor Fitzwater was a very cooperative chap.
00:10:48 Speaker 1
And so we went to him and said, do you, would you mind if we closed?
00:10:54 Speaker 1
When you close off the street in front of our building, just one block so we can use it for a studio.
00:11:01 Speaker 1
Oh, I don’t see why.
00:11:03 Speaker 1
Not, you know.
00:11:04 Speaker 1
Have the Department of Public Works to come up.
00:11:07 Speaker 1
Put these the horses and saw horses for.
00:11:13 Speaker 1
So many a program where you originated on the street.
00:11:17 Speaker 1
And have served us a very useful purpose if we square dancing and other big things while we just use the street in front of the volume that just works like a darn.
00:11:26 Speaker 1
If we had a place where we get our camera fairly high and then our one camera and.
00:11:32 Speaker 1
There’s cooperation all the way around.
00:11:35 Speaker 1
But this is the thing I wanted to stress, Dennis said.
00:11:38 Speaker 1
Was the cooperation of people.
00:11:42 Speaker 1
The TV, the locally was uh.
00:11:47 Speaker 1
One thing, but when we got working on the outlying areas.
00:11:51 Speaker 1
They just wouldn’t take no for an answer and and gosh, these things that just was a wildfire the way they went.
00:11:58 Speaker 1
I’m sure Dennis would.
00:12:00 Speaker 1
I must put in 16 to 18 hours days, try to keep on top of these things.
00:12:06 Speaker 1
But I was.
00:12:07 Speaker 2
Would you have been managing both the radio station and the TV?
00:12:11 Speaker 1
You know.
00:12:12 Speaker 1
And the as I told you yesterday, I was imbued and with canadianism because of the leadership given by Mr.
00:12:24 Speaker 1
I worship with the ground, he walked on.
00:12:26 Speaker 1
I think he is, I said earlier today will go down when history is written as one of the Greek Canadians of all times.
00:12:34 Speaker 1
He just did a fantastic job for this country.
00:12:38 Speaker 1
And it’s unfortunately, he’s not really recognized for the contribution he made guys, I think.
00:12:44 Speaker 2
Another name that I had.
00:12:45 Speaker 2
That I had heard previously in relation.
00:12:48 Speaker 2
To Canadian broadcasting.
00:12:52 Speaker 1
Well, Josh, you know he didn’t, you know the and I’m not saying the government departments are bureaucratic.
00:13:00 Speaker 1
I don’t think that would be fair, but he just cut through the red.
00:13:03 Speaker 1
Tape you could get an answer.
00:13:06 Speaker 1
If there’s something you want you you didn’t have to wait for something to happen if you ran into a problem, phoned me said.
00:13:16 Speaker 1
And the, you know, one time and I don’t know that I should tell this.
00:13:23 Speaker 1
Story, but I guess I will because it.
00:13:26 Speaker 1
The Metropolitan Opera we were carrying that on CFJC radio.
00:13:31 Speaker 1
And the the CPC station in Vancouver, we’re carrying it, but there were.
00:13:37 Speaker 1
We were the only two stations carrying the best offer on Saturday afternoon.
00:13:42 Speaker 1
Now it is true that the Metropolitan Opera doesn’t really, you know, it’s just select audience for it.
00:13:52 Speaker 1
So the newspaper here at the time of uh, ran a little thing in the paper saying, do you want the Metropolitan Opera this year and cut it out and send it to whoever it was?
00:14:06 Speaker 1
And naturally, they they there were select people who said, well, yes, we’d like the Metropolitan Opera.
00:14:16 Speaker 1
There, but there are more.
00:14:17 Speaker 1
Who said no?
00:14:19 Speaker 1
We why can’t we have news and other things?
00:14:25 Speaker 1
And they were in the majority and and, you know, you could expect that that was going.
00:14:29 Speaker 1
To happen.
00:14:29 Speaker 2
Right.
00:14:30 Speaker 1
So we thought, well, we’re going to stand by path, we’re going to carry the Metropolitan Opera on CFJC because and people in the Oakland log and couldn’t get it because the.
00:14:42 Speaker 1
Maybe not well, but at least they can get.
00:14:46 Speaker 1
So we said, well, we’ll open up a what we’ll do is we’ll open up a station on 580.
00:14:53 Speaker 1
Kilohertz, 100 Watt station. And when it comes time to the Metropolitan Opera will say, for those of you who don’t wish to listen to the opera today, there will be alternate programming on 580 kilocycles in those days.
00:15:11 Speaker 1
And otherwise there was station will now join the CBC for the opera.
00:15:18 Speaker 2
So the main station would carry the opera and the secondary station carried the.
00:15:22 Speaker 1
Yeah, we we didn’t put any commercials on it just.
00:15:24
I thought I thought it.
00:15:25 Speaker 2
Was the other way around here at the.
00:15:26 Speaker 1
No, no, no, no. Carry that in order to the people in the Okanogan could get it because they the other the station was only 100 watts.
00:15:27 Speaker 2
Opera and the alternate.
00:15:35 Speaker 2
So to satisfy the local people, you have.
00:15:37 Speaker 1
Justice has found local people.
00:15:40 Speaker 1
So they.
00:15:42 Speaker 1
In any event, the this worked out very well.
00:15:45 Speaker 1
We didn’t run any commercials.
00:15:47 Speaker 1
We did run news and varied programs, and as soon as the opera was off, we signed it off.
00:15:53 Speaker 1
So finally they.
00:15:55 Speaker 1
To firemen transport God wise to it.
00:15:58 Speaker 1
And they were unhappy.
00:16:00 Speaker 1
They ordered us off the air.
00:16:02 Speaker 1
And they gave me a real bad time.
00:16:04 Speaker 1
They cancelled the license CFJC and I would week after week.
00:16:08 Speaker 1
I was just on a 2 weeks basis, you know, they were mad.
00:16:12 Speaker 1
I guess they had justification part.
00:16:14 Speaker 2
As you hadn’t sought approval for this.
00:16:16 Speaker 1
You know, so, Mr.
00:16:17 Speaker 1
Duncan, I met with him in Vancouver and he said to tell me the story.
00:16:21 Speaker 1
And I said, well, they were told him about.
00:16:24 Speaker 1
And he said, well, you, why didn’t you apply for a license?
00:16:26 Speaker 1
And they said I couldn’t apply for a license.
00:16:29 Speaker 1
There’s no provision in the Broadcasting Act for it.
00:16:32 Speaker 1
And they said I investigated the thing and I there’s just no way I said the frequency is cka belongs to the University of Alberta radio station.
00:16:41 Speaker 1
What’s the? So you can’t go? And I said they’re not on the air Saturdays. And even if they wear 100 watts is not going to cause them any interference up there. And that’s a Canadian 3A channel. So we didn’t have to protect anybody.
00:16:42 Speaker 2
You pay, you win.
00:16:53 Speaker 1
Went to Edmonton and they weren’t on the air and he said, well, he said.
00:16:59 Speaker 1
The that’s really providing the service, he said.
00:17:03 Speaker 1
That’s what we need in this country.
00:17:05 Speaker 1
People who will do things.
00:17:08 Speaker 1
He said you’re to be commended for providing the.
00:17:12 Speaker 1
The the server was up there and he said no, I’ll take it from there.
00:17:17 Speaker 1
And he said there were some more both after that.
00:17:21 Speaker 1
But that’s the type of man he didn’t want you to stand on.
00:17:23 Speaker 1
You know, if there was a job to.
00:17:25 Speaker 1
Be done.
00:17:25 Speaker 1
Get in there and do it.
00:17:27 Speaker 1
Figure out how we’re going to get around the regulations after that.
00:17:31 Speaker 2
One thing I’m particularly interested in, and I think you’re going to tell me about, is.
00:17:37 Speaker 2
Like a really unusual situation that.
00:17:41 Speaker 2
An established successful radio station would seem to tempt fate by establishing your television station.
00:17:49 Speaker 2
In other words, you started up your own competition and and looking at it from the outside, it looks like you would be cutting your own throat by doing that.
00:17:55 Speaker 2
Now what?
00:17:56 Speaker 2
What would convince you that?
00:17:58 Speaker 2
Is the way to go.
00:17:59 Speaker 1
Well, because the thing that convinced us is because of Mr.
00:18:03 Speaker 1
Duncan behind the whole thing.
00:18:05 Speaker 1
You know, if he had said that black is white, I’d said yes, that’s true.
00:18:10 Speaker 1
No question at all.
00:18:12 Speaker 1
I had told complete faith in.
00:18:14 Speaker 1
Them complete faith.
00:18:16 Speaker 1
I knew that the, the leadership he had given that as long as he was at the helm, there was no problems.
00:18:24 Speaker 2
But didn’t.
00:18:25 Speaker 2
Didn’t you have any apprehensions about?
00:18:27 Speaker 1
Not at all.
00:18:28 Speaker 1
Not at all.
00:18:29 Speaker 1
Oh, I suppose you know.
00:18:30 Speaker 1
And running, you know, we didn’t run to him with all our problems, we couldn’t.
00:18:35 Speaker 1
And we’ll have lots of problems.
00:18:38 Speaker 1
But certainly at no time we were dedicated to doing the job.
00:18:46 Speaker 1
I don’t want to get into this discussion.
00:18:53 Speaker 1
In those days, we were ought to keep Canadian radio and TV, basically Canadians.
00:19:03 Speaker 1
Now we knew that.
00:19:07 Speaker 1
It was possible to pick up some a Spokane station on a hill on a mountain Mount Lolo very high place where they have all the defense material up on the top there and.
00:19:21 Speaker 1
And they could have brought into camps, in fact, that they they were on at that point.
00:19:26 Speaker 1
And that was why there was such a need to get going right away.
00:19:30 Speaker 1
If the American seasons had got into here as they are today by cable.
00:19:36 Speaker 1
There had been no hope for any Canadians possible ability of Canadian stations.
00:19:41 Speaker 2
So it was something you felt?
00:19:41 Speaker 1
It just wouldn’t have been practical.
00:19:43 Speaker 2
Had to be done then.
00:19:44 Speaker 1
It had to be done then.
00:19:46 Speaker 2
What eventual effect did it?
00:19:48 Speaker 2
Did it have on the radio station?
00:19:53 Speaker 1
Well, the it’s affected the the earnings.
00:20:00 Speaker 1
Of the radio station but.
00:20:02 Speaker 1
Really not to that great extent because our local business was still very good.
00:20:09 Speaker 1
And pardon me, Dennis, I don’t think that we.
00:20:17 Speaker 1
I forget now they we really.
00:20:23 Speaker 1
We sold radio separate.
00:20:26 Speaker 1
From TV2 stood on their their feet and then our early days of TV we were, you know again we.
00:20:36 Speaker 1
We didn’t know what we were doing or how to go about it.
00:20:39 Speaker 1
And our race for, you know, you could buy a.
00:20:45 Speaker 1
Been an announcement for 5 bucks.
00:20:48 Speaker 2
On radio or television.
00:20:50 Speaker 1
On on TV.
00:20:52 Speaker 2
Not like that anymore, is it?
00:20:52 Speaker 1
And not like that anymore.
00:20:56 Speaker 1
And then of course, the FM came along too.
00:20:58 Speaker 1
We were wanting to develop that.
00:21:04 Speaker 1
We experimented with the FM in 1945.
00:21:08 Speaker 2
That early.
00:21:11 Speaker 1
With the gasoline operated thing and.
00:21:16 Speaker 1
I think see CFM FM.
00:21:21 Speaker 1
I may stand corrected, but I think it was the 2nd station West of Toronto.
00:21:28 Speaker 1
Of the earth.
00:21:29 Speaker 2
Was that an experimental station or?
00:21:30 Speaker 2
Is that?
00:21:31 Speaker 1
The one that was the one that’s on the air now.
00:21:34 Speaker 2
Well, to my knowledge, the first step amputation in this in BC would have been the one in Vancouver that the CDC started up in 47.
00:21:45 Speaker 1
You know, I I may stand here and practice on that, but in any event.
00:21:48 Speaker 2
Thank you.
00:21:48 Speaker 2
We’re experimenting with it earlier than that.
00:21:50 Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, I’m a little easy on that.
00:21:52 Speaker 1
I’d have to recheck that, Dennis, you know.
00:21:54 Speaker 2
Well, I can I can take.
00:21:56 Speaker 2
But the the the CDC was.
00:22:00 Speaker 2
Not permitting FM licenses because it didn’t want to get into it itself, so it didn’t want anybody else to that.
00:22:08 Speaker 1
No, I don’t think that’s really a true statement.
00:22:11 Speaker 1
I I don’t think that the CBC held up FM in any.
00:22:14 Speaker 1
Way shape or form?
00:22:16 Speaker 1
I really don’t.
00:22:17 Speaker 2
Because, uh, my my, my understanding was that they had that it was technically feasible earlier, but it didn’t really start happening until the late 40s.
00:22:26 Speaker 1
You know, but it it just wasn’t getting the acceptance. You know, I remember broadcaster CAB meeting up at to Jasper and RCA had set up all the equipment and.
00:22:38 Speaker 1
And had beautiful music and stereo and everybody you know, the rumors where it put with receivers.
00:22:45 Speaker 1
Everybody’s tall.
00:22:45 Speaker 1
That’s just marvelous.
00:22:47 Speaker 1
Isn’t that magnificent day?
00:22:49 Speaker 1
Must you know, we have to look at that sometime in the future, but they really never caught the private broadcasters were not enthused in the 1st place.
00:22:57 Speaker 1
They just thought the idea was a wonderful thing.
00:23:01 Speaker 1
But no, it’s long ways down the road.
00:23:03 Speaker 1
That was their attitude.
00:23:06 Speaker 1
You know, Dennis, you may say, well, gosh, I’m just so pro CBC and I am pro CBC, there would be, I don’t know, you mean they they’ve just been.
00:23:15 Speaker 1
They’ve done so much in my lifetime for small communities such as Kamloops and Prince George Colon.
00:23:22 Speaker 1
You can carry that right across the nation.
00:23:26 Speaker 2
I think a lot of.
00:23:29 Speaker 2
A lot of broadcast is perhaps you know their centers.
00:23:33 Speaker 2
We’re more concerned about them as competition rather than working with them.
00:23:36 Speaker 2
And that might have.
00:23:36 Speaker 2
Been the problem, I don’t know.
00:23:40 Speaker 1
Well, the trouble was you say that the CDC.
00:23:44 Speaker 1
For many, many, many years, they were in charge of private and public radio.
00:23:50 Speaker 1
And the private broadcasters felt that, you know, that they really weren’t getting a fair shake. The CBC had all the high-powered stations and.
00:24:00 Speaker 1
And I think that was a fair deal because the high-powered channels that were available to Canada under the international agreement should have gone to CBC.
00:24:10 Speaker 1
And I think that was only.
00:24:11 Speaker 1
Fair and the private broadcasters, I think you mean by the time the border broadcast governors came into being, that they were pressing the government, the government for the coming in the Conservatives to set up the border broadcast govern.
00:24:25 Speaker 1
And to as a separate body to rule both the CBC and the privately owned stations.
00:24:26 Speaker 2
Separate bodies.
00:24:33 Speaker 1
And I could comment on that, but I won’t.
00:24:39 Speaker 2
Perhaps you could comment.
00:24:40 Speaker 2
Do you think that?
00:24:43 Speaker 2
There was that that presented a lot of problems.
00:24:46 Speaker 2
The idea of CDC being bold.
00:24:49 Speaker 2
A A transmitting or an operating radio agency, and also a governing body at the same.
00:24:57 Speaker 1
No, I don’t think so.
00:25:00 Speaker 1
I think they’re, you know, they’re big arguments for it.
00:25:02 Speaker 1
I’m not saying there aren’t, but let us look at this thing for what it is now.
00:25:06 Speaker 1
Had the CBC remained in control of private broadcasting?
00:25:10 Speaker 1
And remained and as they were up till the time they of 1957 or 56, the CBC would have today two coast to Coast radio Networks still going. They would have two coast to Coast TV network.
00:25:27 Speaker 1
And they would have been between radio and TV, and particularly in TV, they would have had the top 18 American shows that are on TV, on the Canadians tube TV networks.
00:25:40 Speaker 1
You know, and they even had two channels reserved for places like Kamloops and Kelowna and Prince George and.
00:25:46 Speaker 1
Red deer and you name it.
00:25:48 Speaker 1
Medicine Hat.
00:25:50 Speaker 1
And had we gone that route, Dennis, there wouldn’t have need been a need to bring cable into Canada.
00:25:59 Speaker 1
Now we’ve brought cable into Canada and it’s a fact accomplished, so there’s no use of crying in our beer.
00:26:04 Speaker 1
But we’ve got lots of problems.
00:26:07 Speaker 1
You know, the TV has come in the back door.
00:26:11 Speaker 1
And they, you know, they it’s fragmented the audience very, very badly.
00:26:18 Speaker 2
Well, it can be argued, too, that people wanted.
00:26:21 Speaker 2
The American stations.
00:26:22 Speaker 1
Yeah, but if they could have got the top eighteen of the shows of the top 2018 of the top 20 American shows, there wouldn’t have been any need to bring in cable. But right now.
00:26:34 Speaker 1
And that’s where you know where we’re losing.
00:26:36 Speaker 1
You know what is going to happen to canadianism in this country, you know, on the border of the Canadian Radio Television Commission have got themselves a real problem.
00:26:47 Speaker 1
You know they right now you’re looking out the window.
00:26:50 Speaker 1
There’s a dish up in the hotel across the way.
00:26:54 Speaker 1
There’s dishes all over the countryside up here picking up American programming, and you say, well, what’s wrong with that?
00:27:00 Speaker 1
That there’s nothing wrong with it.
00:27:03 Speaker 1
Eventually, if we let this thing go on, everybody is going to have a dish on the roof.
00:27:07 Speaker 1
They’ll bring the cost down to $250 in a few years. Everybody will.
00:27:11 Speaker 1
Have a dish and they’ll they’ll receive hundreds of TV signals and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but what’s it going to do to Canadian TV?
00:27:22 Speaker 1
All they see on the CBC say, well, you know, they there was a time when front page challenge was watched by millions of people.
00:27:32 Speaker 1
No, it’s still watched by a goodly number of people.
00:27:35 Speaker 1
I’m not saying innocent, but the audience is so badly fragmented.
00:27:40 Speaker 1
With the American stations, you know they there’s no difference here in camelops.
00:27:46 Speaker 1
You can pick up the off the cable system.
00:27:50 Speaker 1
The three Seattle stations and the four Seattle stations.
00:27:54 Speaker 1
And what’s the difference whether you get them on a cable or whether they were allowed to have rebroadcasting stations and cameras no different?
00:28:04 Speaker 1
None whatsoever.
00:28:06 Speaker 2
Yet if somebody was at if the Critc was asked if received applications to actually for these people to actually establish their broadcasting stations, they would never allow.
00:28:15 Speaker 1
No, they never prevent it.
00:28:17 Speaker 2
OK.
00:28:17 Speaker 2
Well I I think I see your point now.
00:28:19 Speaker 1
And I don’t know that the Dennis, what is going to be the future, what is going to happen in our country?
00:28:27 Speaker 1
Are we going to be able to survive?
00:28:31 Speaker 1
I think we’re going to be able to do it, but we’re certainly in a bad, bad predicament.
00:28:38 Speaker 2
Perhaps just in the time left I wanted.
00:28:40 Speaker 2
To ask you.
00:28:43 Speaker 2
Just a little.
00:28:43 Speaker 2
Bit, yeah, if you could tell me if you look at the the broadcasting industry at the time when you were becoming involved in in the 30s and 40s?
00:28:56 Speaker 2
The industry and the kind of work done and the people.
00:28:59 Speaker 2
And you looked at it now.
00:29:02 Speaker 2
What has been what have been some of the most dramatic changes?
00:29:07 Speaker 1
Well, I think the most dramatic change of course has been that today’s become so professional.
00:29:16 Speaker 1
They you know, you have places like Kamloops and corner you don’t start to men green on their radio anymore or on TV.
00:29:26 Speaker 1
They have to, you know, they go looking for a job.
00:29:29 Speaker 1
The first thing that they would experience to be.
00:29:31 Speaker 1
Gone and it’s difficult to get into the.
00:29:36 Speaker 1
You’ll be where do you start to get the experience?
00:29:39 Speaker 1
But has become very professional, isn’t it?
00:29:43 Speaker 1
Today, the mind you in my time, Dennis said.
00:29:53 Speaker 1
You know, I didn’t have any competition.
00:29:55 Speaker 1
And I suppose that makes a difference when you’ve got competition and you’ve got to change and drop a lot of things that you consider are in the public interest in order to be able to.