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December 18, 1963 –CKX – FM Brandon went on the air broadcasting from noon to midnight.  
 
Manitoba Radio.  
The first Radio Broadcast in Manitoba was on March 13, 1923 when Radio Station CKY in Winnipeg debuted with regularly scheduled programming. The citizens of Brandon had to wait until 1928 when CKX officially began broadcasting with similar offerings. It was two years before that a 1926 original Brandon Radio program publicises the Provincial Exhibition through its directors, discourses and recorded music, “transmitted by long distance wires to the MTS broadcasting station in Winnipeg. One month later, Wheat city boosters were certain that arrangements being made would result in the establishment of local radio communication. By late October 1928, the need to be on the air became very necessary in Brandon.  
At this time the local community was absorbed in wireless telephone experiments. The Manitoba Government Telephone system sought control through a commercial basis broadcasting business, while on the other hand the Federal Authorities advertised, “all receiving set owners must secure the required licenses at any Post Office.” The Manitoba Government telephone system was advertising locally an offer to provide “complete radio sets with two storage batteries, head phones, detector tubes, one hundred and fifty feet of aerial wire with which the customer could catch the concerts from Winnipeg for $95.00.”  
Blithe, (lacking due thought or consideration) Board of Trade spirits decided the time for action had come, but not until March 1927 could an interview be arranged with Commissioner J. E. Lowry whose references concerning broadcasting requirements sent them to the civic fortress, seeking its use as an air waves base. In Winnipeg the Mother station CKY had constructed a new broadcast facility, and had its discarded equipment available for use in Brandon. As the year of 1928 was born, the city fathers agreed to provide studio space and a site where transmission towers could be erected. The chosen site was on corporation lawns, which caused Parks Board Authorities to protest the contemplated sacrilege.  
Meanwhile a second enterprise, namely the Brandon office of James Richardson and Sons, announced that daily grain and stock reports were to be rendered over company station CJRW from the company’s basement depot, with once a week local concert broadcasts. At the bewitching hour of midnight on August 30th, (I must mention that most hardworking regional dwellers were sleeping) the first short wave performance was made by remote control. ‘Radio development’ man Mr. D. R. P. Coats believed it could be “heard almost all over the world” carried out this test. That same week, civic governors expressed more than mild surprise when Commissioner Lowry requested a four thousand, five hundred dollar annual guarantee for a local “air station.” Alderman William Hill thought it strange that the government should always seek an iron clad security for any venture into Brandon.  
Mr. Lowry suggested, as an alternative, a ‘Brandon hour’ using the remote control facilities once every two weeks costing eighty dollars. City council fought the ‘yearly guarantee’, and then re-promised to provide accommodation plus light, heat and water for an already licensed station with the call letters CKX. The commissioner, in turn said the government had no intension of handing out free gifts. The peoples elected finally decided that construction costs should be shared, and so work began.  
As the transmission towers arose over the city hall grounds several possible opening dates came and went, but at last on December 11th Brandon “went on the air” with official CKY announcer Mr. F. E. Rutland in attendance. The Program consisted of Miss Ruth Rutland, Soprano, Dr. E. S. Bolton, Baritone, Miss Kathleen Moffat, Pianist, and Mr. Henry W. Thornborough, Organist. Non-Radio owners were able to participate in this historical broadcast by attending a special remote control offering at St Paul’s United Church, or the City Hall Auditorium. It was said to be “heard to advantage,” but this medium was silenced during the offerings of ‘The Goblins Orchestra’ whose toe tapping renditions of “If you want the rainbow, you must have the rain,” and “She didn’t say yes, she didn’t say no,” and other tunes only reached listeners out of town. The newsprint record reads:  
“With Telegrams and other long distance messages from many parts of Manitoba and beyond, broadcasting station CKX made a most successful debut on Thursday evening, 1928. One of the first communications received was from the Pas, an indication that the far north caught the concert well. No announcer has yet been secured for the station which will be in operation three evenings a week, Tuesday’s, Fridays and Sunday’s, from eight thirty to ten o’clock.”  
Brandon was one of the first Western Canadian Cities to have its own Radio Station, seven years after the introduction of radio to the Dominion of Canada. From its very beginning the station has dominated Brandon’s broadcast history.  
 
Source: Brandon Sun Archives.