Kate Aitken was offered a radio show in 1934, when a broadcaster at CFRB in Toronto broke her leg and the station manager needed an emergency replacement. The show was syndicated to other radio stations, and was eventually picked up by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1948. By the 1940s, she had become one of CFRB's most popular broadcasters, and newspapers abandoned the custom of referring to her by as Mrs. Henry Aitken; they began using her radio name, Kate Aitken, all the time. Her radio programs were also profitable for CFRB: she was able to get her own sponsors, and she proved that a daytime show aimed mainly at home-makers could gain a wide following. While most of her fans were women, among the many people who wrote to get her advice, 18% of the letters came from men. Throughout much of her radio career, Aitken was heard three times during the day; in 1950, an estimated 32 per cent of Canadians listening to the radio were tuned into her show whenever she was on the air; estimated to be up to three million listeners. She was so popular that she received 260,000 letters, 150 speeches during the course of a year and 22 secretaries to manage the workload. She also became an expert at getting interviews for her broadcasts; sometimes, she spoke with interesting local people who were in the news, but she also traveled overseas to get interviews with famous news-makers, including one with Benito Mussolini. In fact, when she first met him in 1927, she was said to have persuaded him to place an order for Canadian wheat.