National Radio Day is actually an American event, celebrating the day the first news radio station, 8MK radio in Detroit, was licensed by the FCC and went to air in 1920.
I wrote last year on National Radio Day about how many American “firsts” overshadow Canada’s place in the history of the medium.
Here in Canada, we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of Canada’s test of station XWA or “Experimental Wireless Apparatus” earlier this year with Canada Post’s release of commemorative stamps, marking the May 20, 1920 closed broadcast.
Montreal’s XWA, received the first Canadian experimental radio licence in 1919, changing its call letters to CFCF – for Canada’s First, Canada’s Finest in 1920, and two years later made the leap to commercial broadcasting. Broadcasting with 500 watts, Canada’s first broadcast studio opened in The Canada Cement Building in Phillips Square.
100 years later, it’s a tough time for radio on the revenue side. According to the latest CRTC data release, radio reported its largest year-over-year revenue decline in five years. Still, there are more than 8,200 Canadians working in radio at over 700 commercial stations, many of them still as intensely passionate about connecting with listeners as their predecessors in the heyday of the medium.
As Canadian broadcast veteran Stu Jeffries put it in a National Radio Day post extolling his ongoing love affair with radio, “Ask any personality worth his or her salt and they’ll tell you that they chose radio to share. To bring the world as they see it to you…personally.”
“As for the future of a medium whose death knell has been sounded for years (LPs!! Blank tapes!! Ipods!! Satellite!!)? Radio will survive as long as there is a passionate personality…and you,” Jeffries concludes.
Show some love to your favourite personality or share your best radio memories, using the hashtag #NationalRadioDay.
#NationalRadioDay is about thanking the listener. Without which, none of us would have been able to have fun for a living.
— Jason Manning (@jasonmanning) August 20, 2020
#NationalRadioDay shoutout to @cbcradio from 🇨🇦 @tomgreenlive ✊🏻 https://t.co/zr2D0TpFbV
— Tom Harrington (@cbctom) August 20, 2020
Happy #NationalRadioDay. Hard to believe I’ve been in this crazy business for over 17 years. Been a strange 2020 but right now is a real fun time for @Sportsnet650 and we’re glad to have you all along for the ride. (Another game day tomorrow!)
— Andrew Walker (@AndrewWalker650) August 20, 2020
I’ve enjoyed a 40 year, 6 month career in sports media & sports management that includes 27 years, 9 months on @FAN590. Today I say thanks to everyone who helped me along the way. Nothing beats radio for human connection & we need that now more than ever. #NationalRadioDay pic.twitter.com/qdV87fknnH
— Roger Lajoie (@TheRog590) August 20, 2020
Today’s National Radio Day! 📻🥰🎙
We’d like to take this opportunity to say thank YOU for being a Zoner and allowing us to do the one thing we love the most.#NationalRadioDay
– D. & J. pic.twitter.com/3CQ9LSsnB9
— The Zone @ 91-3 (@TheZone913) August 20, 2020
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