Friday marks exactly 65 years since Toronto – in fact all of Canada – got its very first TV station. No surprise, it was the CBC. CBLT went on the air over Channel 9 on September 8th, 1952, and the Star recounts in an article what viewers saw that day.
 
Sept. 8, 1952: Toronto’s first TV station goes live
 
By the way, that reference to the infamous upside down station I.D. that marked its first moments on the air was repeated many years later when the station switched frequencies from channel 6 to its current channel 5. I’m not sure how many people saw this, but I remember getting up very early (before 6 AM) in 1972, when CBLT officially signed on in its new position. And I'll never forget what I saw.
 
After the colour bars-test pattern went off (no one was on 24 hours in those days) the then-CBC logo was displayed upside down for about a second and a half, before it was flipped in the right direction. To this day, I’m pretty sure it was done as a deliberate homage to the first sign-on a very long time ago.