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Timmins history: Northern Ontario broadcasting pioneer J. Conrad Lavigne

In this week’s look back at Timmins history, we feature broadcasting pioneer, J. Conrad Lavigne.

While working for his uncle at a bar in Kirkland Lake, Lavigne did a French-language program on the local radio station,until management decided it didn’t want that type of programming.

Timmins Museum director-curator Karen Bachmann says he came back to Timmins in 1952… and opened his own francophone station, CFCL, to serve the whole region.

 “And this was quite revolutionary for the time because there was a French-language station in Sudbury – a little tiny one – and there was one in Ottawa,” Bachmann tells us.  “But one that serviced a larger community did not exist at the time.

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The station was upstairs of the Fern Cottage restaurant at 175 Third Avenue.  Lavigne added English, Ukrainian and Italian programming.

Lavigne’s competitor, Roy Thomson, owned the English station in town.

“Roy Thomson tried to shut him down because it was a battle for audience and it was a battle for money, like all things are within media, right?” Bachmann remarks. “So things did settle down, Conrad ran his little radio station and then thought ‘You know what?  This is really cool, but there’s this new technology coming out called television, and I want to be on the ground floor of that.”

In next Monday’s look at Timmins history, the birth of CFCL TV.

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