CFCA (AM)

CFCA was the first regularly broadcasting licensed radio station in

The success of the broadcast led the Star to commission a series of 19 concerts that were transmitted from April to mid-June 1922 over 9AH. As well, the Star, beginning April 10, 1922, broadcast a daily half-hour program at 7 p.m. on 450 metres with content varying from financial and sports bulletins, guest speakers, live music, bedtime children's stories read by a librarian, and a political bulletin telegraphed from The Star's correspondent in Ottawa.[4]^[3]

The Star's radio service also became the first in Canada to broadcast a church service when it carried the Easter morning service conducted by Reverend W.A. Cameron at Bloor Street Baptist Church. Cameron would go on to broadcast Sunday morning sermons over the CFCA for a decade making him one of the best known preachers in Canada.^[3]

Launch of CFCA

During this period, the Star applied for and received one among the first batch of 62 commercial radio licenses issued by the Department of Marine and Fisheries which, at the time, was responsible for radio. CFCA was licensed to broadcast on 400 metres (equivalent to 750 kHz)

In August 1922, as part of "Radio Year" at the Canadian National Exhibition, CFCA in co-operation with CITCo and its station CKCE (formerly 9AH) constructed a Radio Building to display radio equipment, as well as setting up loudspeakers over which CFCA and CKCE's special broadcasts of speech and music could be heard for 8 hours a day in order to expose the general public to radio broadcasts and encourage them to purchase radio receivers.^[3][4] As part of these special demonstrations, CFCA initiated regular newscasts and weather bulletins.^[3]

Notable broadcasts included live election results coverage with the Radio Car and loudspeakers in various locations around as well as outside of Toronto being used so that crowds could gather to hear the results. The first such broadcast was of the

CFCA hired Hart House musical director Reginald Stewart, to create and lead Canada's first radio orchestra, consisting of 50 musicians, for the station's regular dance program, Hour of Good Music.^[3]

According to a modern Toronto Star article on the station: "A typical broadcasting day for CFCA in 1923 began at noon with a weather report. From 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. there were agricultural reports, news and music. Closing stock market figures and late-day news were aired from 5:30 to 6 p.m. From 8 to 9 every evening, there was a live concert."^[2]

In 1924, CFCA's studios moved to the top of the Procter & Gamble building at Yonge Street and St. Clair Avenue.^[3]

CNR Radio, Canada's first radio network, leased time on CFCA as a phantom radio station operating with the call letters CNRT, until the network disbanded in 1932. While leasing CFCA's transmitter and frequency, CNRT would broadcast from its own studio located in the King Edward Hotel.^[7]

While other stations in Toronto were given licenses in Toronto, none would begin regular broadcasts until 1925 and CKCE, owned by CITCo as the successor of 9AH, broadcast only intermittently before going off the air permanently in 1924.

CFCA fell behind its competitors due to Atkinson's hesitance to invest in new equipment and facilities for the station, as he believed that the Aird Commission's recommendations would be implemented bringing privately owned radio stations to an end.[3] Plans for a new state of the art studio to be constructed in the Daily Star′s new headquarters, which opened in 1929, never came to fruition, resulting in the station failing to keep pace with the latest technological developments. The station's transmission power remained at 100 watts while rival CKGW, which was utilized by the Toronto Telegram newspaper, was transmitting at 10,000 Watts by the end of the decade.^[3]

Mackenzie King's Liberal government was defeated by the

After the closure of CFCA, the Star remained involved in radio until 1946 by providing content such as news bulletins to CRCT, the Toronto affiliate of the new Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission and continued to do so when CRCT became CBL, the flagship of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation when it succeeded the CRBC in 1937.^[3]

In 1947, the Star considered re-entering radio broadcasting by applying for an early

The AM 770 frequency in Toronto is occupied by WTOR, a daytime-only border blaster station licensed to and broadcasting from Youngstown, New York (state). Under the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement, CFCA (had it survived until 1941) would have been required to move up to AM 780, a frequency that is not occupied in the Toronto market.

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