Source : Canadian Press

TORONTO (CP) - Harry Boyle, a former broadcaster and chairman of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, has died at age 89.

Boyle, who made his career in broadcasting, was also known as an author,
humourist, and broadcast regulator.

He was born in 1915 in St. Augustine, Ont., and after graduating from
school, worked for the Goderich Signal Star and several western Ontario weekly newspapers.

According to Boyle's biographies on the Canadian Communications Foundation
and Chicago's Museum of Broadcast Communications websites, he started his
broadcasting career in the 1930s, accepting a job with a radio station in Wingham, Ont., developing shows that focused on local news.

He stayed at the station for five years before accepting a position as
district editor of the Stratford Beacon Herald. He soon met Don Fairburn,
who worked for the newly formed Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and asked
Boyle to interview for a job at the CBC.

Boyle started working at the CBC in 1942 as a farm commentator and then director, later joining the CBC television service in the 1960s, serving
as program director and executive producer.

In the late 1940s, Boyle had moved into production and was appointed
director of the Trans-Canada Network. When the Dominion Network was established, Boyle created the feature show Assignment which reflected "homey'' local stories from across Canada.

Among Boyle's accomplishments was CBC Wednesday Night _ launched in 1947
as tree non-commercial hours which offered opera, musicals, classical and
original plays and even documentaries.  The show went on to win fame among intellectual and artistic communities in Canada. 

Boyle established a reputation as a creative programmer who defended the ndependence of producers against management restrictions. He also
launched the careers of many well-known Canadian broadcasters, including Max Ferguson and the comedy team Wayne and Shuster.

In 1968, Boyle was appointed vice chairman of the CRTC, the independent public authority that regulates and supervises broadcasting and telecommunications in Canada. He succeeded Pierre Juneau as chairman when
Juneau resigned in 1975 and was later confirmed to the position in 1976.

Boyle left the CRTC after a year, having gained a reputation, along with Juneau, of safeguarding domestic ownership of Canada's broadcasting
industry and creating a set of Canadian content quotas for television, among other initiatives.

In 1977, Boyle presided over a committee of inquiry which examined national broadcasting shortly after the victory of the separatist Parti Quebecois
victory in Quebec's 1976 election. The report was critical of the CBC for failing to promote communications among the country's regional and linguistic
communities, and expressed concern about the centralization of the Canadian television system, the lack of programming from regions outside central Canada and the gap between French and English audiences.

© Canadian Press