CBC Digital Archives

CBC Digital Archives

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (French: Société Radio-Canada), officially branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster. The English- and French-language services units of the corporation are commonly known as CBC and Radio-Canada respectively, and both short-form names are also commonly used in the applicable language to refer to the corporation as a whole.

Although some local stations in Canada predate CBC's founding, CBC is the oldest existing broadcasting network in Canada, first established in its present form on November 2, 1936. Radio services include CBC Radio One, CBC Radio 2, Première Chaîne, Espace musique and the international radio service Radio Canada International. Television operations include CBC Television, Télévision de Radio-Canada, CBC News Network, le Réseau de l'information, Explora, ARTV (part ownership), and documentary. The CBC operates services for the Canadian Arctic under the names CBC North and Radio Nord Québec. The CBC also operates digital services including CBC.ca / Radio-Canada.ca, CBC Radio 3, and CBC Music / espace.mu, and owns 20.2% of satellite radio broadcaster Sirius XM Canada, which carries several CBC-produced audio channels.

CBC/Radio-Canada offers programming in English, French and eight Aboriginal languages on its domestic radio service, and in five languages on its web-based international radio service, Radio Canada International (RCI). However, budget cuts in the early 2010s and Canada's over-the-air digital television transition have contributed to the corporation reducing its service via the airwaves, discontinuing RCI's shortwave broadcasts as well as terrestrial television broadcasts in most communities apart from some major cities.

The financial structure and the nature of the CBC often place it in the same category as other national broadcasters, such as the British broadcaster BBC, although unlike the BBC (and more like the Irish network RTÉ), the CBC employs commercial advertising to supplement its federal funding on its television broadcasts. The radio service employed commercials from its inception to 1974. Since then, its radio service, like the BBC, has been commercial-free.