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C-SPAN

  • ️Mon Oct 03 2016
C-SPAN
C-SPAN logo
Launched March 19, 1979 (C-SPAN)
June 2, 1986 (C-SPAN2)
January 22, 2001 (C-SPAN3)
Owned by National Cable Satellite Corporation
Picture format 480i (SD)
1080i (HD)
Slogan Created by Cable. Offered as a Public Service.
Country United States
Language English
Broadcast area United States
Headquarters Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C.
Sister channel(s) C-SPAN2
C-SPAN3
C-SPAN Radio
Website cspan.org
Availability
Terrestrial
WCSP-FM/HD
(C-SPAN Radio)
90.1 FM / HD Radio (Washington, D.C. / Baltimore)
Selective TV, Inc.
(Alexandria, MN)
K62AU (Channel 62)
Satellite
DirecTV Channel 350: C-SPAN
Channel 351: C-SPAN2
C-SPAN3: not available
Dish Network Channel 210: C-SPAN
Channel 211: C-SPAN2
C-SPAN3: not available
Cable
In-House (Washington) Channel 4: C-SPAN
Channel 2: C-SPAN2
Channel 3: C-SPAN-3
Available on most cable systems Check local listings for channels
Verizon FiOS Channel 109: C-SPAN
Channel 110: C-SPAN2
Channel 111: C-SPAN3
Satellite radio
XM Channel 132
IPTV
AT&T U-verse Channel 230: C-SPAN
Channel 231: C-SPAN 2
Channel 232: C-SPAN 3
Internet television
Available free to all internet users C-SPAN.org
(Live and On Demand)

C-SPAN (pronounced /ˈsiːspæn/), an abbreviation of Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, is an American cable television network owned and operated by the cable industry. It airs non-stop coverage of government proceedings and public affairs programming. C-SPAN does not accept outside advertising; the only commercials aired are for its own programming and products.

C-SPAN operates three television channels, one radio station and several websites that provide streaming media including archives of many C-SPAN programs. The television networks are:

  • C-SPAN which provides uninterrupted live coverage of the United States House of Representatives. Also airs Washington Journal live every morning
  • C-SPAN2 which provides uninterrupted live coverage of the United States Senate. It also airs Book TV on weekends
  • C-SPAN3 which features other uninterrupted live public affairs events and airs a large amount of archived historical programming branded as C-SPAN3 History

Each network since a graphics upgrade in summer of 2010 now has an associated color to the left of their channel's logo to make it easy to differentiate which channel is being watched, with C-SPAN blue, C-SPAN2 red, and CSPAN-3 yellow.

All three channels also air events such as Presidential press conferences and speeches, as well as other government meetings such as Federal Communications Commission hearings and Pentagon press conferences. State events such as the Illinois Senate trial of former Governor Rod Blagojevich were simulcast from Illinois' state public affairs channel. Other state events include Governors' State of the State addresses. International events such as British House of Commons meetings from The UK's BBC Parliament, and Canadian government events and shows from Canada's CPAC are also occasionally aired. Several non-government public affairs events are also featured. Channel usage for all of these events vary by date depending on availability.

The bulk of C-SPAN's operations are located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., but they also maintain archives in West Lafayette, Indiana at the Purdue Research Park under the direction of Professor Robert X. Browning.

History

Brian Lamb, C-SPAN's chairman and CEO, conceived of C-SPAN while working at Cablevision, a cable industry trade magazine, as their Washington, D.C. bureau chief. C-SPAN was created as a cable-industry financed, non-profit network for televising sessions of the U.S. Congress and other public affairs event and policy discussions. Bob Rosencrans, a cable industry pioneer, was alone in providing the initial seed funding of $25,000 to start up C-SPAN.[1] It receives no funding from any government source, has no contract with the government, and does not sell sponsorships or advertising. It strives for neutrality and a lack of bias in its public affairs programming.

C-SPAN first went on the air on March 19, 1979, broadcasting a speech by then-congressman Al Gore. C-SPAN2, a spin-off network, covers all live sessions of the U.S. Senate and went on the air on June 2, 1986, with the original channel then focusing on the House. The latest spin-off, C-SPAN3, began broadcasting on January 22, 2001, and shows other government-related live events along with historical programming from C-SPAN's archives.

On October 9, 1997, C-SPAN launched C-SPAN Radio, which broadcasts on WCSP 90.1 FM in Washington, D.C. The radio station, which is also available on XM and was on Sirius satellite radio from 2002–2006, covers similar events as its sister TV networks, often simulcasting their programming.

All three video channels, plus the radio channel, are globally available through streaming media via the C-SPAN web site, however high-speed access is required for nearly all content. Additionally, some programs are archived on the Internet for weeks or for longer times.

On February 12, 2003, C-SPAN launched the Amos B. Hostetter Distance Learning Program with the University of Denver. Steve Scully, Political Editor and Chair of Communication, instructs the course from the C-SPAN center in Washington, D.C. and features prominent guests in politics and journalism who can field questions live to students in Denver over 1,500 miles away. Soon after, the program was also expanded to Pace University in New York.

C-SPAN also provides unedited, commercial-free coverage of campaign events, both on its weekly "Road to the White House" program and at its dedicated politics website, C-SPAN Politics.[2]

Organization

Uncommonly for a television network, C-SPAN is operated as a non-profit organization by the National Cable Satellite Corporation, whose board of directors consists primarily of representatives of the largest cable companies. C-SPAN accepts no advertising; instead, it receives nearly all its funding from subscriber fees charged to cable and DBS operators. C-SPAN receives no funding from government sources.

Coverage

In addition to live coverage of House and Senate proceedings and local and general elections, the three channels air government hearings, press conferences and meetings of various political, media, and non-profit organizations; book discussions, interviews, and occasionally proceedings of the Parliament of Canada, Parliament of the United Kingdom (usually Prime Minister's Questions and the State Opening of Parliament) and other governments when they discuss matters of importance to viewers in the U.S. Similarly, the networks will sometimes carry news reports from around the world when major events occur — for instance, they carried CBC Television coverage of the September 11 attacks. Newscasts and other broadcasts in foreign languages are dubbed into English. C-SPAN also carries CBC coverage during events that impact Canadians, such as the Canadian federal elections, the death and state funeral of Pierre Trudeau, and the 2003 North America blackout.

C-SPAN has submitted requests to air live United States Supreme Court proceedings, but despite demonstrated popular interest and support for such coverage,[3][4] has always been denied camera access. However, the network has aired audio tapes of the Court in session on significant cases and has covered individual Supreme Court Justices' speaking engagements.

C-SPAN is the only cable channel that covers the Republican, Libertarian, and Democratic presidential nominating convention in their entirety. Following the deaths of Ronald Reagan in 2004, Rosa Parks in 2005 and Gerald Ford in 2006, C-SPAN featured live, uninterrupted coverage of the visitors who came to the Capitol Rotunda to pay their final respects. The network also provided coverage of Lady Bird Johnson's funeral in Stonewall, Texas. In 2008, C-SPAN gave coverage of Hurricane Gustav through New Orleans' NBC affiliate, WDSU, as well as Hurricane Ike coverage via Houston's CBS affiliate, KHOU.

Additionally, C-SPAN simulcasts NASA Space Shuttle mission launches and landings live, using the footage and audio from NASA TV.

Live streaming

All of C-SPAN's live feeds are streamed free of charge on its World Wide Web site in the Flash Video format; high-speed access is required for nearly all content. As of 2008, selected C-SPAN programs were archived for the general public on its website for at least two weeks, while others remained permanently accessible. C-SPAN used to charge from $30 to $45 for DVD copies of programs.[5]

Online archive

In August 2007, C-SPAN unveiled the C-SPAN Video Library,[6] announcing it would eventually provide free access to all of its past programs—including Congressional proceedings, hyperlinked to corresponding Congressional Record entries—that are not otherwise subject to copyright. In August 2008, C-SPAN announced that an embeddable video player would be part of a "convention hub" website that will track convention coverage by bloggers and social media.[7]

In March 2010, after several years of digitalization efforts (at a cost of about $1 million per year), C-SPAN announced the completion of the C-SPAN Video Library, which provides cost-free online access to more than 160,000 hours of video recorded since 1987.[8] Most of the recordings before 1987 (when the C-SPAN archive at Purdue University was established) have been lost, except around 10,000 hours which Browning intended to make available online, too.[8]

Content licensing

On March 7, 2007 C-SPAN liberalized its copyright policy for current, future, and past coverage of any official events sponsored by Congress and any federal agency and now allows for attributed non-commercial copying, sharing, and posting of C-SPAN video on the Internet,[9] excluding re-syndication of live video streams. Additionally, C-SPAN considers video coverage of the floor proceedings of the U.S. House and Senate to be in the public domain.[10]

Prior to this change, C-SPAN engaged in numerous actions to stop parties from making unauthorized uses of its content online, including video of House and Senate proceedings. For example, Dem Bloggers received a take down request for clips they had posted.[11] In May 2006, C-SPAN requested the removal of the Stephen Colbert performance at the White House Correspondent's Dinner from YouTube while allowing it to remain on Google Video,[12] causing concern from bloggers.[13]

Websites such as metavid and voterwatch.org make House and Senate video records freely available. C-SPAN contested metavid usage of C-SPAN video which resulted in metavid taking down portions of the archive which were produced with C-SPAN's cameras while maintaining an archive of government produced content.[14]

On December 14, 2006 C-SPAN wrote an open letter to Speaker Designate Nancy Pelosi requesting control over the cameras that record floor proceedings. Although C-SPAN airs the transmission, the cameras themselves are controlled by the respective body of Congress.[15] The request was denied.[16]

Allegations of bias and other controversies

Despite its stated commitment to providing politically balanced programming, C-SPAN and its shows such as Washington Journal, Booknotes, Q & A, and Afterwords have been accused of having a conservative bias.[17] C-SPAN's CEO Brian Lamb was a volunteer for Richard Nixon in the 1968 presidential election, and later worked as press secretary to Senator Peter H. Dominick (R-CO).[18] The liberal media criticism organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) released a study of C-SPAN's morning call-in show Washington Journal, showing that Republicans were favored as guests over Democrats by a two-to-one margin during a six-month period in 2005, and that people of color are underrepresented.[19] FAIR and critics including guests[20] have also charged that the shows Booknotes and Afterwords highlight more conservative authors than liberals,[21] and that guests are paired unequally. When Washington Post ombudsman Geneva Overholser appeared as a guest, she asked, "Do you typically have a conservative and then somebody who is just a journalist? Is that the typical match-up?”[22] In 2005, the left-leaning media watchdog group Media Matters for America objected that C-SPAN2 booked L. Brent Bozell, head of the right-leaning Media Research Center, to interview former CBS producer Mary Mapes on After Words about the Killian documents controversy during the United States presidential election, 2004.[23]

In 2004, C-SPAN intended to broadcast a speech by Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt adjacent to a speech by Holocaust denier David Irving, who had unsuccessfully sued Lipstadt for libel in the United Kingdom four years earlier. Critics including the Anti-Defamation League decried C-SPAN's use of the word "balance" to describe its plan to cover both.[24] C-SPAN claimed the adjacent broadcasts would pair arguments of both plaintiff and defendant. However, once Lipstadt closed media access to her speech, C-SPAN canceled the broadcasts of both.[25]

Past chairmen

  • Bob Rosencrans
  • John Saeman
  • Ed Allen
  • Gene Schneider

Shows

Special programs

High definition

The channel launched C-SPAN and C-SPAN2 in high definition on June 1, 2010, and C-SPAN3 in July.[26]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Original Cable Guy". Columbia College Today. http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/jan05/features3.php. Retrieved 5 August 2008.
  2. ^ Politics C-SPAN
  3. ^ See: e.g. Supreme Court of the United States, televised.
  4. ^ "Public Says Televising Court Is Good for Democracy," Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind Poll, (March, 9, 2010). Accessed at: http://publicmind.fdu.edu/courttv/
  5. ^ "C-SPAN Store". C-SPAN. 2008. http://www.c-spanstore.org/shop/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=6_12&page=1&sort=3d. Retrieved August 5, 2008.[dead link]
  6. ^ "C-SPAN Video Library". C-SPAN. 2008. http://www.c-spanarchives.org. Retrieved August 5, 2008.
  7. ^ C-SPAN Debuts Online Convention Hub[dead link]
  8. ^ a b Stelter, Brian (March 16, 2010). "C-Span Puts Full Archives on the Web". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/arts/television/16cspan.html.
  9. ^ "C-SPAN Press Area". Press release. C-SPAN. March 7, 2007. http://www.c-span.org/about/press/release.asp?code=video. Retrieved October 12, 2008.
  10. ^ "Copyright Policy for Educators". C-SPAN Classroom. http://www.c-spanclassroom.org/CopyrightPolicy.aspx. Retrieved August 6, 2009. "The video coverage of the floor proceedings of the U.S. House of Representatives and of the U.S. Senate is public domain material and is not subject to this license, and as such, may also be used for educational purposes."
  11. ^ Dem Bloggers[dead link]
  12. ^ Yahoo! News[dead link]
  13. ^ Jardin, Xeni (May 4, 2006). "Why was Colbert press corps video removed from YouTube?". Boing Boing. http://www.boingboing.net/2006/05/04/why_was_colbert_pres.html. Retrieved October 12, 2008.
  14. ^ "Democratizing the Archive: An Open Interface for Mediation". Metavid. Archived from the original on June 5, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080605053154/http://metavid.ucsc.edu/wiki/index.php/Democratizing_the_Archive:_An_Open_Interface_for_Mediation#Motivations_for_Metavid_and_its_Contested_Legality. Retrieved October 12, 2008.
  15. ^ Lamb, Brian P. (December 14, 2006). "C-SPAN's Letter to Speaker of House Representatives". http://www.c-span.org/pdf/npelosi.pdf. Retrieved October 12, 2008.
  16. ^ "Pelosi rejects C-SPAN control of cameras". Associated Press. CantonRep.com. December 23, 2006. http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=326384&Category=23. Retrieved October 12, 2008.
  17. ^ Tilting Rightward: C-SPAN’s Coverage of Think Tanks Center for Economic and Policy Research, December 2007
  18. ^ Brian Lamb at 25 The American Spectator, March 30, 2004
  19. ^ - Rendall, Steve (November 2005). "Failing at Its "No. 1 Goal" - Lack of balance at C-SPAN’s Washington Journal". Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2764. Retrieved April 15, 2009.
  20. ^ Randi Rhodes Q&A, December 18, 2005
  21. ^ Booknotes' Slanted Shelf FAIR - Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, July/August 2000
  22. ^ Sidebar: Face-Off FAIR - Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, November/December 2005
  23. ^ S.S.M (December 6, 2005). "Why is C-SPAN hosting Brent Bozell?". Media Matters. http://mediamatters.org/items/search/200512060009. Retrieved October 12, 2008. blog
  24. ^ "C-SPAN's David Irving contretemps". Anti-Defamation League. April 13, 2005. http://www.adl.org/learn/extremism_in_america_updates/individuals/david_irving/irving_update_20050413.htm. Retrieved July 29, 2009.
  25. ^ "Lipstadt/Irving Coverage". C-SPAN. http://www.c-span.org/about/lipstadtirving.asp. Retrieved July 29, 2009.
  26. ^ Cable Show Draws News Of HD Channel Launches Multichannel News, May 18, 2010

External links

v · d · eLegislative and public affairs television channels in the United States
Federal

C-SPAN · NASA TV · Pentagon Channel

State and insular territory
v · d · eParliamentary and public affairs broadcasters
IGOs

EuroparlTV (European Union)  · Europe by Satellite (European Union)  · United Nations Television (United Nations)

National
governments

A-PAC (Australia)  · ANTV (Venezuela)  · BBC Parliament (United Kingdom)  · Camera dei Deputati (Italy)  · Canal Parlamento (Spain)  · Chamber TV (Luxembourg)  · S4C2 (United Kingdom)  · CDtv (Chile)  · La Chaîne parlementaire (France)  · CPAC (Canada)  · C-SPAN (United States)  · Al Jazeera Mubasher (Middle East)  · Knesset Channel (Israel)  · Lok Sabha TV (India)  · Houses of the Oireachtas Channel (Ireland)  · Parliament TV (New Zealand)  · Phoenix (Germany)  · Rada TV (Ukraine)  · Radio Radicale (Italy) · Rai GR Parlamento (Italy)  · TV Senado (Brazil)  · TV Câmara (Brazil)  · Senato Italiano (Italy)  · Vouli Tileorasi (Greece)

See also: Legislature broadcaster

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