[2] These led the government of William Lyon Mackenzie King to establish a Royal Commission on the subject of broadcasting.

Aird was appointed head of the three-man commission which also included Augustin Frigon, an electrical engineer, and Charles Bowman, editor of the Ottawa Citizen.

To this end, the report recommended a publicly owned system funded in part by a $3 annual licence fee, in essence, the blueprint for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Unfortunately, the stock market crashed a scant six weeks after the report was issued, making government support for public broadcasting problematic.

Eventually, however, under the government of R. B. Bennett, the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission was formed in 1932 under the chairmanship of Hector Charlesworth, a journalist and music critic from Saturday Night magazine.