C-SPAN
C-SPAN (Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network) went on
the air to 3.5 million households March 19, 1979, from a
Crystal City apartment as the U.S. House of Representatives began televising its proceedings. In the first speech
covered, Rep. Al Gore (D-Tenn.) welcomed the cameras,
two years after the House had approved them and Brian
Lamb, a former Pentagon press aide and Cablevision’s
Washington bureau chief, had won cable industry support
for his idea of a public affairs television network based in
the nation’s capital. For the first time, people outside the
Beltway could watch their government in action—without
interruption and without editorial comment.
Several major trends in media, technology, and politics
in the 1970s culminated in C-SPAN’s arrival. The emerging
cable industry, pressed to offer viewers quality programming beyond what they could get for free via local broadcasters, gained a key competitive foothold in 1972 with the
Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) “open skies”
approval of domestic satellite distribution. In Washington,
the longtime debate in the House between members hoping
to “expand the gallery” via television coverage and those
worried cameras would be disruptive and do little to illuminate the actual legislative process progressed in favor of
lawmakers dissatisfied with the limitations of commercial
network news coverage of Congress. Meanwhile, Lamb,
a critic of what he had come to regard as the inherently
undemocratic nature of the Big Three commercial network
television oligopoly, was drumming up interest among
cable operators for alternative public affairs programming
produced in Washington and delivered to local cable by
satellite.
Lamb helped found C-SPAN in 1979 and from its inception into the twenty-first century served as both CEO and
anchoring presence. While the absence of on-air “personalities” is an essential characteristic of C-SPAN’s programming strategy, Lamb remained the network’s most
well-known face and his early life experiences, especially
in Indiana and Washington, D.C., and his populist critique
of commercial broadcast television’s coverage of government and politics, were primary influences on C-SPAN and
its unique brand of public service television.
Lamb was born October 9, 1941, in Lafayette, Indiana,
son of a tavern-keeper and later wholesale beer distributor.
He developed an interest in broadcasting and journalism
early, and initially hoped to become an entertainer. While
an undergraduate at Purdue University, Lamb started an
“American Bandstand”-inspired dance party show for a
local UHF television station. He graduated in 1963 with
a BA in Speech, enlisted in the Navy and in 1966 was
assigned to the Defense Department’s public affairs unit at
the Pentagon and to the White House as a social aide to
President Lyndon B. Johnson. In Washington, Lamb began
his education into the practice of national politics and the
problematic nature of the interaction between the government and the press.
Following a brief, disillusioning foray into partisan
political activity as a field staffer for the Richard NixonSpiro Agnew campaign in late 1968, Lamb, who has never
joined or contributed to a party or a candidate, returned to
Washington in 1969, working as a freelance audio reporter
for UPI and later as press secretary to Sen. Peter Dominick
(R-Colo.) before joining the Office of Telecommunications
Policy (OTP) in the Nixon Administration in 1971. Lamb’s
boss at OTP, Clay “Tom” Whitehead, provided strong support for the FCC’s 1972 “open skies” decision that authorized domestic communications satellites and enabled a
crucial technological breakthrough for cable television
operators seeking to offer customers more than local broadcast programming.
Lamb left OTP in 1974, began a biweekly newsletter
called The Media Report and was hired as Washington
bureau chief for Cablevision magazine that December.
Convinced the “Big Three” commercial television oligopoly was undemocratic in nature, and enthusiastic about the
potential of the emerging cable-satellite networks, Lamb’s
ensuing campaign to sell the cable industry on the idea of
a new public affairs network coincided with mounting dissatisfaction in Congress with network news coverage of
the legislative process. After the House voted in October,
1977, to televise its proceedings, Lamb made a hand-shake
deal with then Speaker Thomas “Tip” O’Neill (D-Mass.) to
provide gavel-to-gavel floor coverage. That December, the
cable industry incorporated C-SPAN as a nonprofit cooperative, with twenty-two industry executives contributing
$425,000 in start-up money. When the House turned on
its cameras in March, 1979, C-SPAN went on the air. The
Senate followed suit by allowing TV coverage and in June
1986, C-SPAN2 went on the air.
C-SPAN’s growth since its origins in 1979 was impressive. Initially, it operated with only four employees, shared
a spot with the Madison Square Garden Channel on RCA’s
Satcom I satellite, and broadcast part time, whenever the
House cameras were on. By 2006, C-SPAN employed
about 275 people at its modern broadcast facilities and
corporate headquarters located two blocks from the U.S.
Capitol. By then, the network was comprised of three,
twenty-four-hour cable television networks (C-SPAN, CSPAN2, and C-SPAN3) available to more than eighty-eight
million homes; C-SPAN Radio broadcasting via a 50,000-
watt FM-radio station in Washington and also available
on satellite radio; and eleven web sites offering free live
and on-demand audio and video to a worldwide audience.
Although C-SPAN did not subscribe to the audience rating services used by commercial networks, a commissioned
2004 national survey indicated that 20 percent of the U.S.
cable and satellite viewing audience (an estimated 34.5 million people) watched C-SPAN at least once or twice a week,
and 90 percent of the network’s viewers were also voters.
In addition, by 2006, legislative TV channels influenced by
C-SPAN had emerged in a number of state capitals and also
internationally.
The network’s slow and steady growth from cable niche
to media institution frequently referenced by politicians and
late-night comedy shows alike has been driven by a mission-level commitment “to allow the American television
audience the opportunity to see public policy and political
events as they happen, in their entirety, and without commentary.” C-SPAN’s programming philosophy is grounded
in unedited and unfiltered long-form, gavel-to-gavel coverage; camera angles and production values intended to
minimize distraction and provide a “you are there” viewing experience; and a “no stars” concept of on-air talent
that is unique among national television news and public
affairs operations. The network’s independent and determinedly noncommercial editorial approach depends upon a
similarly unchanging financial model and system of corporate governance. The network receives no funding from the
government, carries no advertising and obtains its operating funds from those cable systems and other distributors
that choose to offer C-SPAN to their customers. On average
$.05 of each cable subscriber’s monthly bill goes to fund CSPAN, whose annual operating budget has averaged about
$40 million in early years of the twenty-first century. The
network’s board of directors, consisting of cable industry
executives, oversees business operations and is not involved
in editorial decisions concerning programming.
Lamb was C-SPAN’s first on-air host and his detached
but revealing interviewing technique became part of the
network’s signature programming style. His on-air duties
included regular turns hosting the daily “Washington Journal” morning call-in program and later the weekly “Q&A”
interview show, which in 2004 succeeded the popular
“Booknotes.” Lamb salary as C-SPAN’s CEO was $250,000
a year.
“We have a saying around here [that] if you care who
wins you shouldn’t be here. It’s just not our role. We’re in
the business of showing everything,” Lamb said.
While long-form coverage of the House and Senate, and
regular viewer call-in opportunities, remained integral to
C-SPAN’s purpose, the network’s programming lineup and
its window on the public affairs domain came to extend
well beyond the Congress and the federal legislative process. The network covered a wide array of public policyrelated events both inside and outside of Washington and
representing a broad spectrum of ideological viewpoints.
During presidential campaign years, C-SPAN crews produced extensive ground coverage from New Hampshire
and Iowa as well as, since 1984, gavel-to-gavel coverage
of the major party nominating conventions, which had
received increasingly limited attention from national
network news. C-SPAN ‘s international programming
included live coverage of the weekly Prime Minister’s
Questions sessions in the British Parliament. As C-SPAN
expanded, it devoted substantial resources and airtime to
special series on American presidents and authors as well
as to question-and-answer sessions involving high school
students and leaders from a variety of fields. The network
became known for its focus on nonfiction books through
the “BookTV” weekend programming on C-SPAN2 as
well as the popular “Booknotes,” a nonfiction author-interview program that Lamb hosted for 801 weekly installments before the series ended in 2004.
Created by cable as a public service, C-SPAN’s longterm prospects remained closely linked to the interests of
the industry. The network’s position in the local cable channel lineup, or indeed whether the C-SPAN networks were
offered at all, was the decision of the local cable operator,
who had to make channel space available and typically
forego advertising revenue in order to offer C-SPAN. In an
era of industry consolidation and the emergence of sprawling Multiple System Operators (MSOs) such as Comcast
and Time-Warner, increasing bottom-line business considerations inevitably make cable’s valuation of C-SPAN subject to the pressures of cost-benefit analysis. “Who knows
what will happen ten years from now? Right now there’s a
total commitment on the part of the cable television industry and the satellite providers, but what happens if the economic model changes down the road?” Lamb said in a 2003
interview. However, if the quarter century since C-SPAN’s
arrival on the small screen demonstrated anything, it was
that there was an equally committed national audience for
the brand of long-form, unfiltered coverage of the political process and government “in the raw” that C-SPAN pioneered and has made its programming signature.