CFCA (AM)
| City | Toronto, Ontario |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Greater Toronto Area |
| Frequency | 770 kHz (AM) |
| First air date | June 22, 1922 |
| Last air date | September 1, 1933 |
| Format | Full service |
| Language(s) | English |
| Power | 100 watts |
| Callsign meaning | Canada's Finest Covers America |
| Former frequencies | 400 metres (750 kHz) |
| Owner | Toronto Daily Star |
CFCA was the first regularly broadcasting licensed radio station in Toronto and was one of the first in Canada. Owned by the Toronto Daily Star it is notable for hosting the first live play-by-play ice hockey broadcast on February 8, 1923. The station went on the air in June 1922 and closed permanently in 1933.
Toronto Daily Star owner Joseph E. Atkinson had an early interest in the potential of radio as a promotional device for the newspaper. In early 1922, the Star made arrangements with the Canadian Independent Telephone Company (CITCo) to broadcast a live concert over CITCo's experimental station, 9AH. On March 28, 1922 at 8 pm, the Star made its first concert broadcast over 9AH at 450 metres (666 kHz) from CITCo's studio on the top floor of the General Electric factory at Wallace Avenue and Ward Street (close to Lansdowne Avenue and Bloor Street West). Performers included Luigi Romanelli’s Orchestra, cellist Boris Hambourg, pianist Alberto Guerrero, and violinist Henri Czaplinski. The broadcast was announced, produced, and directed by Dr. Charles A. Culver of CITCo.
The broadcast, one of the first of live musical entertainment in Canada, was heard by the approximately 1,000 radio hobbyists in Toronto who owned crystal radio sets as well as by an audience at the Christie Street Military Hospital, where a radio receiver had been set up, and by an audience of over 1,100 gathered at the Masonic Temple who heard the transmission on a radio receiver set up on the stage. The broadcast was heard as far away as Napanee, Ontario, Georgian Bay, and upstate New York.
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