Personalities

In 1969 The Canadian Association of Broadcasters provided the start-up funding for what was later to become the Canadian Communications Foundation. Then in 1982, the CAB established its Hall of Fame to honour, in perpetuity, men and women whose contributions had demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to innovation, development and maintaining the highest standards of excellence in broadcasting generally -- particularly in Canada.

As the CAB observed its Diamond Jubilee in 1986, 26 persons were so honoured -- among them, Canadian-born Reginald Fessenden (1866-1932) who proved to the world in 1900 that the human voice could be successfully transmitted by radio waves and who, on Christmas Eve in 1906, broadcast the first radio program.

In 1994, the Canadian Communications Foundation entered all Hall of Fame inductees into its newly-created website. It also added biographies of other radio and television pioneers who had made significant and innovative contributions to the growth and development of Canadian broadcasting, but whose vision, ingenuity, dedication and venturesome undertakings had not been otherwise recognized.

This category was subsequently expanded to include broadcasters whose contributions to the building of the industry in later years were felt to be equally worthy of their being similarly recognized.

In June 2010, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters was first dissolved and then restructured on a much smaller scale, and the annual nomination and election of new names to the CAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame was discontinued.