 | |
| Type | Internationalpublic broadcaster |
|---|---|
| Country | Canada |
| Headquarters | Maison Radio-Canada,Montreal,Quebec, Canada |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | Canadian Broadcasting Corporation |
| History | |
| Founded | 25 February 1945; 80 years ago (1945-02-25) (as CBC International Service) |
Former names | Voice of Canada (informal, 1945), CBC International Service (1945–1970) |
| Coverage | |
| Availability | International |
| Links | |
| Website | ici.radio-canada.ca/rci |
Radio Canada International (RCI) is theinternational broadcasting service of theCanadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Prior to 1970, RCI was known as the CBC International Service ("CBC IS"). The broadcasting service was also previously referred to as theVoice of Canada, broadcasting onshortwave from powerful transmitters inSackville, New Brunswick. "In its heyday", saidRadio World magazine, "Radio Canada International was one of the world's most listened-to international shortwave broadcasters".[1] However, as the result of an 80 percent budget cut, shortwave services were terminated in June 2012, and RCI became accessible exclusively via the Internet. It also reduced its services to five languages (in contrast with the 14 languages it used in 1990) and ended production of its own news service.[2]
On December 3, 2020, RCI announced that its staff was being reduced from 20 to 9 (in contrast to 200 employees in 1990)[3] and that its English and French language sections would close and be replaced by curated content from the domestic CBC and Radio-Canada services. RCI would also begin offering online services inPunjabi andTagalog.[4] The changes went into effect on May 19, 2021.[5][6]
The idea for creating an international radio voice for Canada was first proposed as far back as the 1930s. Several studies commissioned by the CBC Board of Governors in the late 1930s had come to the conclusion that Canada needed a radio service to broadcast a Canadian point of view to the world.
By the early 1940s, this need was also recognized by a series of Parliamentary Broadcasting Committees. Finally, in 1942,Prime MinisterWilliam Lyon MacKenzie King announced that Canada would begin ashortwave radio service that would keep members of theCanadian Armed Forces in touch with news and entertainment from home. The CBC International Service became a reality with the signing of an Order-in-Council on September 18, 1942.
By the end of 1944, both the production facilities and the transmitting plant were ready for test broadcasts. These tests, which began on December 25, 1944, were broadcast to Canadian troops in Europe in both English and French.Psychological warfare in German to Europe began in December 1944 as well. The German section was staffed by refugees such asHelmut Blume andEric Koch and would go on to broadcast "denazification" programming as well as broadcasts aimed at East Germany during theCold War.
In early 1945, it was announced that the CBC International Service was ready and would go on the air on February 25 using the name the "Voice of Canada".
By 1946, the CBC International Service had expanded to include regular transmissions in Czech andDutch. Beginning in July, special once-a-week programs were broadcast toScandinavia inSwedish and Danish and later inNorwegian, as well.
In November 1946, daily broadcasts started to theCaribbean in English. There were also Sunday night programs broadcast to Cuba, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador in Spanish and to Brazil in Portuguese.
Daily Spanish and Portuguese transmissions began on July 6, 1947. At around the same time as the expansion into the Caribbean andLatin America, the CBC International Service became involved with the newly formedUnited Nations. United Nations broadcasts through the CBC International Service continued until November 29, 1952, when they were transferred to larger shortwave facilities run by theVoice of America.
Throughout its early years, the CBC International Service concentrated on broadcasting to Western Europe in the aftermath of World War II.
By the early 1950s, several international shortwave stations began to beam programs into theSoviet bloc countries in an effort to circumvent heavy censorship of world news to their citizens.
New English and French programs directed to Africa were added; this have the International Service direct coverage to every continent except Asia.
The CBC International Service played a major role in coveringCanada's Centennial celebrations in 1967. Ceremonies from coast to coast were carried over short-wave to the world on July 1, 1967 as Canada marked its 100th birthday.
In July 1970, the service was renamed Radio Canada International.
The change took place because it was felt that RCI should have its own identity, separate from the CBC domestic network, even though RCI had just been fully integrated into the CBC system.
On November 7, 1971, RCI inaugurated its new 250 kW transmitters which were five times more powerful than the existing units. This significantly improved RCI's signal quality in Europe and Africa.
Canada recognized the People's Republic of China in 1971. Before beginning its Mandarin Chinese service, RCI produced a 40-week series called Everyday English which was broadcast in 1988 and early 1989 over local stations inBeijing,Shanghai, andGuangzhou.[8] With an estimated audience of almost 20 million, the course was a huge success.
Just 10 months after beginning the Chinese broadcasts, RCI started a series ofArabic broadcasts to the Middle East. This coincided with the United Nations effort in thePersian Gulf to support theGulf War, of which Canada was a participant.
In early 1991, facing further budget deficits, the Government of Canada ordered an across-the-board budget cut. Every ministry andCrown corporation, including the CBC, was required to participate. After evaluating its own budget, the CBC decided it could no longer pay for Radio Canada International without extra funding from the federal government. To save the service, RCI Program Director Allan Familiant announced a major restructuring that took effect on March 25, 1991. As a result, six of the thirteen languages included in the programming (Czech, German,Hungarian, Japanese,Polish, and Portuguese) were discontinued. There was also a short-wave program that went out to sub-Saharan Africa that was discontinued in 2000.
In December 1995, CBC announced that it could no longer fund RCI and that the service would cease on March 31, 1996. However, after a global response to the proposed shutdown, it was announced in March 1996 that the service would continue with half of RCI's budget coming from CBC and the other half from theDepartment of Foreign Affairs.[9]
While the English and French services survived, all RCI-produced programming (except for news broadcasts) were eliminated and replaced with CBC Domestic network programs. Since then, some RCI-produced programs in English and French have been restored. RCI then began a two audio stream, which became a three audio stream programming delivery structure after 2000.
Initial programming delivery structure (2000–2004)
Later programming delivery structure (2004–2006)
These audio streams were available from RCI's website as well as across Europe, the Middle East and Northern Africa, utilizing theHotbird-6 satellite. In late 2006 the online streams were eliminated in favour of a single online multilingual stream.
On December 1, 2005, Radio Canada International began broadcasting its program across North America asRCIplus, utilizing theSirius satellite radio system. This was part of a CBC/Radio-Canada selection of satellite channels which included national versions of domestic radio stations fromCBC Radio andPremière Chaîne.
Following an internal review in the summer of 2006, Radio Canada International announced a restructuring of its programming output. Its homepage press release read: "Radio Canada International is proud to announce that it will launch its new English programming on Monday, October 30th. In the interim, our current shows will be replaced by two programs, from October the 2nd to the 29th."[10] On October 30, 2006 Radio Canada International relaunched its English and French programming with a new focus on information for new immigrants to Canada as well as continuing to broadcast to the world, moving away from news and current affairs. It also increased its broadcast hours to 12 hours a week, which could be heard via satellite and online,[11] although itsshortwave hours were restricted and remained unchanged.
A new Internet service called RCI Viva acted as an online portal for new Canadian immigrants. RCI Viva was an on-demand listening portal as well as an online stream, whereas listeners in North America could listen via satellite subscription radio fromSirius Canada entitled RCI plus. Both RCI Viva and RCI plus used a similar multilingual schedule.
Listeners in Europe were still able to listen to RCI's three channels in English, French and multilingual. An interim program, on the English-language service during October calledCanada Today in Transition was broadcast as a single program across Europe, Africa and the Middle East, replacing the two regular editions for Europe and Africa. It was hosted by ex-Canada Today for Africa presenter Carmel Kilkenny. The new two-hour English-language flagship program is calledThe Link and is hosted byMarc Montgomery, replacing RCI's previous weekday programsCanada Today,Media Zone,Sci-Tech File, andBusiness Sense. Its French-language counterpart is calledTam-Tam Canada and is presented byRaymond Desmarteau, which replacedLe Canada en direct,Le sens des affaires and its previous current-affairs based shows. Programs inArabic, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese andUkrainian were relatively unchanged.The Link was also repeated onCBC Radio One, as part of theCBC Radio Overnight lineup.
In November 2006,Radio Sweden's medium-wave broadcast from Sölvesborg ceased regular transmissions as a result of a modification in itsshortwave time-share agreement which had Radio Sweden to broadcast to North America via RCI's transmitters inSackville and RCI to Europe via Radio Sweden until Sackville's closure in 2012.
On April 4, 2012, an approximate 80 percent budget cut to the International service from $12.3 million a year to $2.3 million a year was announced by RCI Director Hélène Parent. In the 2012 federal budget, a 10 percent funding reduction was announced for the domestic broadcaster, CBC/Radio-Canada. The Crown corporation subsequently translated this to an 80 percent reduction to the International service under its financial and managerial control.[12]
These changes effectively ended broadcasting by RCI via shortwave and satellite. RCI News service (as a separate news service from the CBC/Radio-Canada derived news) ended, and the Brazilian and Russian sections closed.
All shortwave transmissions (including those fromthe Sackville Relay Station inSackville, New Brunswick), satellite, and all broadcast programming ended on June 26, 2012. In addition:
Until 2020, Radio Canada International maintained a website, amobile app, and a cyber magazine, in English, French,Mandarin, andArabic that was updated with news items and features written by RCI staff. The service producedpodcasts in those languages, both general interest podcasts featuring news, interviews, and reports on Canada, and limited series thematic podcasts on various topics related to Canada or Canadian activity internationally. As of 2020, the flagship half-hour weekly podcasts wereThe Link (English),Tam-Tam Canada (French),Canadá en las Américas Café (Spanish),Voice of Canada (Mandarin), andWithout Limits (Arabic).[14]
On December 3, 2020, RCI announced that its staff was being reduced from 20 to 9 - consisting of "five journalists assigned to translate and adapt CBC and Radio-Canada articles, three field reporters, and one chief editor"[4] and that its English and French language sections would close and be replaced by curated content from the domestic CBC and Radio-Canada services, and the Arabic, Spanish, and Chinese sections would also be cut in size. However, RCI would also begin offering online services in two new languages:Punjabi andTagalog.[4]
RCI's old website was closed and instead, RCI content was incorporated into an RCI portal on the CBC website which features curated articles from the CBC and Radio Canada websites in English and French and articles from CBC and Radio-Canada translated into five foreign languages as well as reports from RCI's field reporters. 10-minute weekly podcasts of Canadian news are also posted in those five languages rounding up the top Canadian stories for foreign audiences as well as reports from the field in Chinese, Arabic and Punjabi. RCI's five mobile apps were deleted and folded into the CBC News and Radio-Canada Info mobile apps.[4][5]
According to RCI's announcement: "RCI’s operations will focus on three main areas: translating and adapting a curated selection of articles from CBCNews.ca and Radio-Canada.ca sites; producing a new weekly podcast in each RCI language; and producing reports from the field in Chinese, Arabic and Punjabi."[4]
As of 2024, RCI was producing weekly 10-minute podcasts in Mandarin, Arabic, Punjabi, Tagalog, and Spanish. Its web portal offered text in those languages as well as curated English and French material from CBC and Radio Canada.[15]
Tony Burman, a former editor-in-chief ofCBC News, criticized the changes saying they were "flipping RCI’s historic mission on its head" by refocusing RCI on immigrants within Canada rather than on producing content for international audiences. In February 2021, anopen letter was sent to Prime MinisterJustin Trudeau signed by 32 prominent Canadians including former prime minister and foreign ministerJoe Clark, former foreign ministerLloyd Axworthy, former Canadian ambassador to the United NationsStephen Lewis, actorDonald Sutherland, authorNaomi Klein, former CBC Radio managing editorJeffrey Dvorkin, and others, calling on CBC to rebuild the international service stating that "In an interconnected world in search of truth, facts and honest journalism, countries like Canada cannot abdicate their role on the world stage.”[16][17]
History of RCI Language Broadcasting Services[18][19][20][21]
| Language | Start date | Stop date | Restart date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arabic | 2000 | — | — |
| Chinese-Mandarin | 1988 | — | — |
| Czech | 1946 (seeSlovak) | March 25, 1991 | — |
| Danish | 1946 | March 4, 1961 | — |
| Dutch | 1946 | March 4, 1961 | — |
| English | December 25, 1944[22] | March 31, 2021[4][5] | — |
| Finnish | December 1950 | January 29, 1955 | — |
| French | December 25, 1944[22] | March 31, 2021[5] | — |
| French-Creole | 1989 | 2001 | — |
| German | December 1944 | March 25, 1991 | — |
| Hungarian | January 1951 | March 25, 1991 | — |
| Japanese | 1988 | March 25, 1991 | — |
| Italian | January 1949 | March 4, 1961 | — |
| Norwegian | 1947 | March 4, 1961 | — |
| Polish | January 1951 | March 25, 1991 | — |
| Portuguese-Brazil | July 6, 1947 | March 25, 1991 | 2004, ended May 10, 2012 |
| Punjabi | May 19, 2021[5] | — | — |
| Russian[23] | January 1951 | May 10, 2012 | — |
| Slovak | January 1951 | March 25, 1991 | — |
| Spanish | July 6, 1947 | — | — |
| Swedish | 1946 | March 4, 1961 | — |
| Tagalog | June 2021[5] | — | — |
| Ukrainian | July 1, 1952 | 2009[24] | — |
RCI'sinterval signal was the first four notes ofO Canada played on apiano, followed by "Radio Canada International" pronounced in English, and then French.
The mainstudios for RCI have been inMontreal since RCI was created in 1943–44.
RCI as a corporate entity (separate from its broadcasting operations) has also been based in Montreal since its inception in the 1940s, with its studios and offices located initially in a former brothel, moving to the convertedFord Hotel a few years later, and then to rented office tower space. In 1973, RCI moved to its current home,Maison Radio-Canada.[25]
Figures are Canadian dollars (CAD).
RCI's Gross Cost per Canadian resident (per year) was: CAD 0.38 (2003, 2004).
Note: there are 168 hours in a week (24 hours × 7 days).
RCI's Programming Production (historical)
In the 1990s, RCI's programming output peaked.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, RCI's parent, owned and operated the Sackvilletransmitter site (CKCX). The site was on theTantramar Marshes, several kilometres east ofSackville, New Brunswick.[26] RCI leased or bartered its spare transmission capacity with other international broadcasters. Sackville was used byRadio Japan,China Radio International, theVoice of Vietnam, theBBC World Service,Deutsche Welle andRadio Korea as part of a transmitter-time exchange agreement. Canada's only high-powershortwave relay station, Sackville also broadcastCBC North to northern Quebec andNunavut.
The CBC-SRC network runs three 1 kW relays of domestic radio, one of which originated from Sackville. Sackville's northern-hemisphere transmission-targeting capabilities were similar to those of the Wertachtal relay station inBavaria. Its site layout was similar to Wertachtal's, with a few differences. Wertachtal has three arms ofHRS type antennas spaced at about 120 degrees, allowing for near-360-degree global coverage.[citation needed]
The Sackville site was built in 1938 for local CBC broadcasting overCBA. Five years later, two RCA shortwave transmitters were installed. In 1970, all CBC operations moved toMoncton,New Brunswick for the installation of newCollins transmitters. During the mid-1980s, the RCA transmitters were replaced by threeHarris transmitters.
With the end of Radio Canada International's shortwave service in June 2012, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation tried to sell the Sackville transmitter complex to another international broadcaster or a wind-farm company. According to CBC transmission director Martin Marcotte, "[The Sackville complex] will be fairly costly to dismantle and as a last resort we would dismantle the facility, return it to bare land as it was when we first acquired that site."[27] On October 30, theCRTC granted a CBC request to revoke CKCX's broadcast license effective November 1.[28] When no purchase offers were received for the complex, its antennas and towers were dismantled in 2014.[29] In 2017, the 90-hectare (220-acre) property was sold to a non-profit consortium of New BrunswickMi'kmaq bands known as Mi'gmawe'l Tplu'taqnn. The intended use of the property was not disclosed at the time of purchase.[13] As of 2019, the Mi'gmawe'l Tplu'taqnn band plans to add the land to theFort Folly First Nation Reserve and is still considering potential re-development options.[1][7]
The Sackville facility was computerized in a main control room. Frequencies, antennas and input feeds were switched in accordance with internationally agreed-on schedules which were renegotiated twice per year. At the time shortwave broadcasting ceased in 2012, there were nine transmitters in operation: three 100 kW, three 250 kW and three 300 kW. Although the site was capable of using 500 kW transmitters, the end of theCold War and improved shortwave-frequency coordination made an upgrade to 500 kW unnecessary.
NewBrown, Boveri & Cie digital transmitters usedphase-shift keying (PSK) and had 250 kW output. NewerThales 300 kW transmitters could useamplitude and phase-shift keying (APSK), the design successor partially based on PSK modulation).
All modern Sackville shortwave transmitters employeddynamic carrier control (DCC), automatically reducing thecarrier wave in the presence of low-level (or no) audio.With no audio (silence) the carrier power was reduced by 50 percent; a 250 kW transmitter put out a carrier of 125 kW during audio pauses, saving power.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)CBC-SRC's archived stories on RCI
Historical
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