The 1950s: Television's Canadian Debut
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Ever since my wife Christina and I moved out, we've wanted to buy a television
set. Unfortunately, with two young children and the extremely high prices
of television sets and the fact that we're unsure of whether the fad will
wear off, we did't get one for quite some time. However, after hearing
that over 38,000 sets were sold during the first seven weeks of 1952, we
decided to plunge in. We decided to buy a radio console unit, so that we
could listen to the radio or watch TV from the same unit, paying under
$500. Let me tell you a bit about the invention and introduction of TV.
CBC-TV's first broadcast took place on September 6, 1952 in Montreal. On September 8, 1952, CBLT (CBC Toronto) began its first broadcast at 7:15 p.m. to an audience of 146,000 Canada-wide. The evening of festivities begans with "Let's See" which was a preview of the night's events. Following that, was Percy Saltzman with the weather, John Conway in Uncle Chichimus, and at 8 p.m., the opening ceremonies. We were quite amused to see the ID slide appearing upside down on our TV screen. Originally we thought that our TV was broken already, but later we found out that other people saw the same thing! Another landmark in Canada's explosive TV development was the first all-Canadian coast-to-coast live TV transmission. "Memo to Champlain" was transmitted via microwave link in 1958.
Now that we have our own television set, we enjoy sitting down together as a family with Richy and Rhoda and watching CBC shows together. Do you want me to tell you about our family's favourite broadcasts?
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