[net.misc] Canada's Tradition as a Pioneer in C

rpw3@fortune.UUCP (03/22/84)

#R:utcsrgv:-338600:fortune:6700035:000:1296
fortune!rpw3    Mar 21 23:48:00 1984

+--------------------
|     The first commercial radio station in north america was station
| CFCF in Montreal.  It was followed by KDKA in Pittsburgh.
| 
|   Lee Dickey, University of Waterloo.  (ljdickey@watmath.UUCP)
|                       ...!allegra!watmath!ljdickey
|                 ...!ucbvax!decvax!watmath!ljdickey
+--------------------

Gee... somebody ought to tell KCBS (San Francisco) that. They have been
LOUDLY proclaiming themselves the first commercial broadcast station
all year. Seems it's their 75th birthday this year (they started in San Jose
in 1909) and they're letting everybody know it.

Maybe the difference is in the word "broadcast"? Many of the early stations
(possibly CFCF and KDKA?) were not "broadcast" stations, in the sense that you
had to buy THEIR receivers from THEM to listen (shades of cable-TV decoders!).
Maybe KCBS was the first "broadcast" station (supported by advertising and
subscription, not by radio sales).

Rob

p.s. Surely KDKA is WKDA these days, no?

p.p.s KCBS is the CBS Network's West Coast flagship station. Surely they
      checked their references.

-------------
Rob Warnock

UUCP:	{sri-unix,amd70,hpda,harpo,ihnp4,allegra}!fortune!rpw3
DDD:	(415)595-8444
USPS:	Fortune Systems Corp, 101 Twin Dolphin Drive, Redwood City, CA 94065