Although some local stations in Canada predate its founding, the CBC is the oldest continually-existing broadcasting network in Canada. The CBC was established on November 2, The CBC's funding is supplemented by revenue from commercial advertising on its television broadcasts.
The radio service employed commercials from its inception to , but since then its primary radio networks have been commercial-free. In , the CBC's secondary radio networks, CBC Music and Ici Musique , introduced limited advertising of up to four minutes an hour, but this was discontinued in In , the Aird Commission on public broadcasting recommended the creation of a national radio broadcast network.
A major concern was the growing influence of American radio broadcasting as U. Meanwhile, Canadian National Railways was making a radio network to entertain its passengers and give it an advantage over its rival, CP.
The network was used to broadcast programming to riders aboard its passenger trains, with coverage primarily in central and eastern Canada. While the CRBC was a state-owned company, the CBC was a Crown corporation on the model of the British Broadcasting Corporation , which had been reformed from a private company into a statutory corporation in Leonard Brockington was the CBC's first chairman.
For the next few decades, the CBC was responsible for all broadcasting innovation in Canada. This was partly because, until , it was not only a broadcaster but the chief regulator of Canadian broadcasting. It used this dual role to snap up most of the clear-channel licences in Canada. It began a separate French-language radio network in December The latter, carrying lighter programs including American radio shows, was dissolved in , while the former became known as CBC Radio.
