The Inspiring History of Graham Spry and the Canadian Radio League

Who was Graham Spry?

According to the Graham Spry Fund website:

“In Canada, in the 1930s, broadcasting was in its infancy. Concerned about the developing impact of commercial radio, a broad coalition formed the Canadian Radio League, to promote the principle of broadcasting as a public service. The League's driving force was a thirty-year-old Rhodes Scholar by the name of Graham Spry.”

In recounting his successful campaign to establish a national network of publicly owned yet locally independent radio stations (CBC Radio), Graham Spry Unabashedly acknowledges that, “our greatest ally was undoubtedly, anxious, disturbed and alert Canadian public opinion” (Spry 1961). I think our work at CDM has this same ally, especially with issues like Net Neutrality. It's also important to consider that Spry would likely would not have been able to give weight to public opinion without the broad based national coalition established by the Canadian Radio League.

I Highly recommend watching the entire video interview of Spry:

You can also watch on the CBC’s website here:
http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-75-1631-11232/science_technology/early_radio-tv/clip3




Graham Spry and the Canadian Radio League provide much to learn from and be inspired by.


You can find a great write up on Spry from Friends of Canadian Broadcasting.