One of the great things about living in Canada is the wide range of choices in broadcast content both on the radio and on television. Living so close to the U.S., we’re able to pick up signals from the major U.S. providers, and, of course, we have a multitude of our own stations – from community access TV to campus radio stations to large television broadcasters both public and private.

It hasn’t always been that way. In The Swashbucklers: The Story of Canada’s Battling Broadcasters, Knowlton Nash relates how the Canadian broadcast media came to be. Nash, a legendary figure himself because of his many years as a newsman on CBC television, tells the story of Canadian broadcasting via its many – and often dramatic – battles: public vs. commercial interests, radio vs. television as an ad revenue source, and cable vs. over-the-air transmission.

Nash is interested primarily in the human side to this conflict, describing the larger-than-life figures who were responsible for the dramatic events in broadcasting, from the Sifton and Sedgwick families in the early days to the Aspers and men like Moses Znaimer of the present era. Nash tells the story the same way that he’s always come across on camera – clear, concise and to-the-point. His biggest strength here, though, lies in the seemingly inexhaustible amount of research he’s done. Over the course of several years, Nash sat down with many of the key players in the industry to get their first-hand accounts of how the alphabet soup that is broadcasting in this country – the CRTC, CBC, CAB (Canadian Association of Broadcasters) – was concocted.

The Swashbucklers will appeal, first and foremost, to people with a specific interest in Canadian broadcasting history. But it’s also a good read for anyone with a general interest in the development of Canadian culture, and how that culture has been transmitted to the masses.