Media Networks and Language Crossing in Montreal

The author examines the lack of linguistic mixing in Montreal media - television, radio, newspapers, magazines. One exception to this linguistic separation was Montreal's CHOM-FM radio station, which from its inception in 1971 allowed its on-air broadcasters to use either French or English, or to switch back-and-forth between the two languages. The author outlines how the CRTC's radio licencing process initially got around this "experiment of programming" in the early 1970s, how advertisers reacted to this format, and how, by 1976, French language radio stations reacted negatively to this bilingual format and forced the CRTC to curtain this "experiment." However, the issue then became a political issue between the federal government's promotion of Canadian bilingualism and the provincial government's language policies to promote French only in Quebec. In 1977, the station was forced to drop its two-languages experiment.

Speaking Memory: How Translation Shapes City Life

Montreal and Kingston

McGill-Queen's University Press

2016

153-168

en

978-0-7735-4788-9