Part 6: CN Polishes its Programming

With a coast-to-coast network in place, CN put even more energy into giving listeners the best possible program choices. The radio department hired an accomplished program director, Esmé Moonie, to manage drama and music productions. She expanded the scope of CN’s musical offerings, which ran the gamut from CN’s own bagpipe band to the Royal Russian Choir.

One of her more popular initatives was a series of Sunday evening concerts by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, launched in October 1929. Introducing the inaugural concert, CN president Sir Henry Thornton struck a patriotic note: “One of our first considerations is the encouragement of Canadian talent... Through this and other programs we hope to present to Canadians those gifted individuals, thus offering encouragement to them... to remain in their own country and labour for the advancement of art with that ardour which has always characterized Canadians.”

 
CN Radio, McIntyre's Orchestra, c. 1926.
CSTM/CN Collection #26509
 

In the drama department, CN set a new and ambitious goal: to combine first-rate entertainment with education and nation-building. The vehicle would be The Romance of Canada, a series of 26 original dramas, which ran for two seasons, 1931 and 1932. “We hope to kindle in Canadians generally a deeper interest in the romantic early history of their country,” Sir Henry Thornton said.

Written for CN by playwright Merrill Denison, each play depicted a stirring episode in Canada’s past. The series called for an exceptional producer, so CN recruited Tyrone Guthrie, then a respected drama producer with the British Broadcasting Corporation and later the founding artistic director of Canada’s Stratford Festival. Since most of the actors had never performed on radio before, Guthrie set up a “radio school” to teach them the special techniques that radio requires. He even sent actors in a play about Pierre Radisson to the First Nations community of Kahnawake to learn Mohawk speech patterns.

 
Descendants of Selkirk settlers and "Bois Brulés" gather at The Fort Garry, Winnipeg to hear Merrill Dennison's thrilling radio play Seven Oaks, in which their ancestors played a leading and tragic role. About 170 "old timers" were the guests of the Canadian National Railways to listen to this revival of pioneer days on the air.
Source: Canadian National Railways Magazine, April 1931, p. 7.
 

The Romance of Canada was extremely popular with listeners as well as much admired and imitated in the broadcasting world. CN even built a new studio in Montreal to accommodate the dramas’ complex requirements – a so-called multiple studio, first of its kind in North America. A great deal of effort and resources went into each production. The Last Voyage of Henry Hudson, for example, needed 22 hours of rehearsal time and cost $725 to produce. Merrill Denison received $250 for his script – a huge sum in those days.

 


"Turn back! We've had enough of dreams!".
The mutiny on board the Discoverie, which ended in the death of Henry Hudson in the icy drifts of the great bay that now bears his name. A scene from the radio play, The Last Voyage of Henry Hudson, the first in the Romance of Canada series.
Source: Canadian National Railways Magazine, February 1931, p. 24.

 

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