A series of crackly pips and beeps broadcast to radios across Canada has outlasted two monarchs, 13 prime ministers, 27 sessions of parliament and various fractures to national unity. They have provided a quiet comfort to citizens abroad and inspired music and artworks.
But this week, after 84 years, Canada’s public broadcaster announced the termination of its official time signal, abruptly ending the longest running radio program in the country’s history. The news broke in a manner similar to the time signal: overlooked amid a frenzy of larger, more globally relevant stories.
“The way it disappeared so unceremoniously really took people by surprise,” said Craig Baird, host of the podcast Canadian History Ehx. “They missed the chance to say goodbye. It was like missing the series finale of a show that you’ve watched for years.”
Since November 5, 1939, CBC Radio One has broadcast the National Research Council time signal once a day, advising listeners “the beginning of the long dash” would mark the beginning the hour: one o’clock in Ontario, 10 in the morning in British Columbia.
Canadians set their watches and oven clocks to it. Trains were more punctual. Sailors could navigate more precisely. And as the time signal persisted over generations, it transformed into a cultural bedrock of the country.
“Even if you weren’t a frequent listener to the CBC, most people have heard it at least once in their lifetimes,” said Baird. “And so while it persisted for so long, it’s not something people thought about much until it was gone.”
As Canadians make sense of the loss, a sense of grief and frustration has taken hold. Listeners to Baird’s show shared memories, including one woman who trained her dog to sit for a treat when the long dash was broadcast. An informal poll of his listeners and followers on social media found the vast majority wanted the time signal back – if only to say goodbye.
“You can’t say a noise is your friend,” said Sa Boothroyd, a British Columbia-based artist. “But it was a sound that resonated. And it touched many people at the same time. It brought us together like few things can.”
For Boothroyd, the time signal a piece of auditory “punctuation mark” that has remained a constant over the years. When she began selling a tea towel printed with the “long dash” they quickly became a bestseller.
“I had no idea it was going to catch on … But it means a lot to a lot of Canadians – even those outside the country. It’s something we can hang on to.”
But in 2019, as the public broadcaster celebrated the 80th anniversary of the time signal, journalist Lawrence Wall, announcer of time signal in Ottawa, told the CBC he didn’t envision the network changing the signal or “heaven forbid”, dropping it fully.
“People still like to listen to it, and I still run into people who say, ‘Aren’t you the guy who does the time signal?’ not ‘Aren’t you the guy who does the news in Ottawa?’” he said. “So it’s that time signal that really resonates with them still, and I think it always will.”
Another broadcaster, Stephen Rukavina, posted that when he was asked to record the preamble – the famous “long dash” line – “I really felt like I’d made it”.
It was the broadcaster’s gradual shift from over-the-air radio signals to satellite and internet-based transmissions that marked the end of the time signal.
“We share the nostalgia that many people have towards the daily time announcement but Canadians also depend on us for accurate information,” CBC spokesperson Emma Iannetta said in a statement. “With all of the different distribution methods we use today we can no longer ensure that the time announcement can be accurate.”
In one instance, the CBC had to drop the “10 seconds of silence” in the preamble to the time signal because silence confused modern systems.
The NRC said the installation of digital radio transmitters in 2018 led to a delay of up to 9 seconds. The NRC says cesium atomic clocks remain “the world’s best timekeepers”. A cesium fountain clock in the United States, NIST-F2, is accurate within 1 second over 300 million years.
Boothroyd says the decision by CBC is puzzling, especially because most Canadians no longer set their clocks by the signal. Instead, the pause was a moment of respite in a busy day.
“There’s a beautiful heaviness to the time signal. It makes us stop. We need to stop. And that’s a good thing,” Boothroyd. “We’re in a world that moves so fast. Technology is the reason we don’t have it anymore. But I wonder- what is technology offering us to replace what we’ve lost?”
