1931 Census of Canada - Do you have a radio?

In column 10 of Form 1A and Form 1B, the population schedules excluding the North West Territories, of the Seventh Census of Canada, 1931, we find an interesting question being asked:

"Has this family a radio?"

1931 Census of Canada, Ontario, district 127, sub-district 77, London, p. 5, extract of columns 3-10;digital images, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 26 Jun 2023); citing Library and Archives Canada folder T-27278.

This was the first and only time this question was asked in a census of Canada. Interestingly, this question was also asked in the Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930 where in the "Home Data" section they asked "Radio set" in column 9.

So why did both Canada and the United States ask that question about having a radio?

Canadians are that time were wondering the same thing.

So on May 28, 1931 in The Lloydminster Times we find a write up titled "RADIO CENSUS".

"Radio Census," The Lloydminster Times, 28 May 1931, p. 8, col. 4; digital images, Newspapers.com https://www.newspapers.com/ : accessed 26 Jun 2023).

The column starts off explaining that it wasn't to locate people who have not paid for a radio receiving equipment license. The answers to this question, like all questions on Canadian censuses, are confidential until 92 years after the census was taken. All that the various government departments get are the compiled statistical results. The newspaper column went on to explain that the question was asked because the government was wanting to understand who had a radio. Nothing sinister at all.

Just a moment...you had to have a license to operate radio receiving equipment¹ (AKA a radio) in Canada?

"License to Operator a Radio Receiving Equipment - Victoria, British Columbia - Canada 1924," digital image,Scripophily.com (https://scripophily.net/license-to-operate-a-radio-receiving-equipment-victoria-british-columbia-canada-1924/ : accessed 26 Jun 2023).

That was actually the case until 1953 when the Government of Canada finally dropped that requirement for folks to have a license to own a radio, and it was a license per radio at that, to listen to broadcasts of "The Happy Gang".

So if the government already knew who had a license, why ask this question on the census?

The license only told the government that a household had a radio and where. The neat thing about the census is that it asks all kinds of information. That other information can then be correlated and processed to create possibly interesting bits of information for future planning.

There is even a short report created in 1932 by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics using the information from the Seventh Census of Canada, 1931 titled "Radio Sets in Canada 1931" available for your reading enjoyment (or as an insomnia remedy aid). Note that this was a preliminary count of radios and differs from the final reports published in 1936. This 1932 report even breaks down where the radios are located based on the census districts and cities and the number of radios per 1,000 population. In Volume 1 of the Seventh Census of Canada, 1931 reports published in 1936 there are a few other tables included such as the one found on page 1404. Volume 5 of the reports also has a few tables breaking down radio ownership by household types.

Hopefully this answers the question of why folks in Canada were asked in the 1931 Census if the household owned a radio.

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1. See the various articles on the RadioAlumni.ca site starting with "Remember When We Has Private Receiving Station Licenses ?" by W. J. Wilson for an interesting history on these licenses.