The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (in French: Société Radio-Canada) branded as CBC/Radio-Canada is Canadian public broadcaster founded on November 2, 1936, as a radio network, and its television network went on the air on September 6, 1952. The CBC did not use a logo prior to 1940.
1940–1958[]
Designer:
Hortense Binette
Typography:
Unknown
Launched:
August 29, 1940
The original logo of the CBC, designed by École des Beaux Arts student Hortense Binette and used between 1940 and 1958, featured a map of Canada (and from 1940 to 1949, the Dominion of Newfoundland) and a thunderbolt design used to symbolize broadcasting.
1958–1974[]
English logo
French logo
This logo was also used by Télévision de Radio-Canada during the same time period that it was used by CBC Television.
1966–1974[]
Designer:
Hubert Tison
Typography:
Unknown
Launched:
September 1966
The "Butterfly" logo was designed for the CBC by Hubert Tison in 1966 to mark the network's progressing transition from black-and-white to colour television, much in the manner of the NBC peacock logo. It was used at the beginning of programs broadcast in colour and was used until all CBC television programs had switched to colour.
1974–1992[]
1974–1985[]
Designer:
Burton Kramer
Typography:
Helvetica Neue Roman
Launched:
December 9, 1974
The fourth logo, known internally as "the gem", was designed for the CBC by graphic artist Burton Kramer in December 1974, and it is the most widely recognised symbol of the corporation.
The main on-air identification featured the logo kaleidoscopically morphing into its form while radiating outward from the centre of the screen on a blue background. This animated version, which went to air in December 1974, is also known colloquially as "The Exploding Pizza". This logo was originally accompanied by a three-note jingle performed on a vacuum-tube synthesizer (for the English version used by CBC Television) or by an orchestral woodwind section (for the French version used by Radio-Canada). This was later replaced in the fall of 1975 by the more familiar 11-note synthesized jingle, which was used until December 31, 1985.
1986–1992[]
Designer:
Hubert Tison Robert Innes
Typography:
Frutiger
Launched:
January 1, 1986
The updated one-colour version of the gem/pizza logo, created by Hubert Tison and Robert Innes, was introduced on January 1, 1986, and it was introduced with a set of computer graphic-generated television idents for CBC.
These idents consisted of different background colours corresponding to the time of the day behind a translucent CBC gem logo, accompanied by different arrangements of the CBC's new, orchestrated five-note jingle. The logo was changed to one colour, generally dark blue on white, or white on dark blue, in 1986. Print ads and most television promos, however, have always used a single-colour version of this logo since 1974.
In November 1992, CBC updated its logo design to make it simpler and more red (or white on a red background). The new logo design, created by Swiss-Canadian design firm Gottschalk+Ash, reduces the number of geometric sections in the logo to 13 instead of the previous logo's 25, and the "C" in the centre of the logo became a simple red circle. It is now CBC's longest-used logo, surpassing the original incarnation of the Gem logo and the CBC's 1940 logo.
CBC Music webradios
Summer Songs | One Hit Wonders | Heppner's Opera Gems | Nesrallah's Tempo | Essential Classics | Baroque | Modern Masters | Orchestral | Piano | Chamber | Canadian Composers | Choral | Classical Serenity | Tamashiro's Tonic | Phil Dwyer's Jazz Canada | Tom Power's Deep Roots | Laurie Brown's The Signal | Best of Drive | Colin James' Blues | Bachman's Guitarchives | Adult Alternative | Indie | Rock | Rock Classics | New Wave | Workout Mix | Chill Out | Saddest Songs | Pop 40 | Adult Pop | Jukebox Favourites | The 70s | The 80s | The 90s | Hip-Hop | Jazz Masters | Jazz Songbook | Smooth Jazz | Canadian Songwriters | Singer-Songwriter | World | Reggae | Blues Classics | R&B / Soul | Classic Soul / R&B | Aboriginal | Hot Country | Country Classics | CBC Kids
Other Radio Canada International
Notes 1Formerly co-owned with Corus Entertainment; Blue Ant Media now has full ownership of the channel (as Cottage Life TV). 2Formerly co-owned with Alliance Atlantis and other minority partners; Corus Entertainment now has full ownership of the channel.