ON THE AIR
Forty-five years ago, the nonprofit cable channel C-SPAN began broadcasting daily sessions of the U.S. House of Representatives. The first speech shown was by Al Gore, then a congressman from Tennessee.
BROADCASTING THE WORK OF GOVERNMENT ON CABLE TV
Brian Lamb was the Washington, D.C., bureau chief for Cablevision, which served cable subscribers in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and a portion of Pennsylvania. In the mid-1970s, Lamb began to pitch the idea of a nonprofit public affairs cable channel, funded by the cable industry, that would televise sessions of Congress, public affairs events and talk shows about government policy. The catch: Neither the House nor the Senate allowed TV cameras in its chambers. That changed in October 1977, when the House voted to allow televised coverage — but from cameras operated by House employees. A network wishing to broadcast proceedings would have to use that House feed. Lamb began to search for financial backers, promising nonpartisan broadcasts. When C-SPAN debuted in March 1979, the network had only three employees and could be found on cable networks in only 3.5 million homes across the United States. It broadcast nine hours a day, leasing satellite time from the USA Network. Rep. Al Gore of Tennessee — who later would move to the Senate and then to the vice presidency — gave the first speech on the new network. “Television will change this institution, just as it has changed the executive branch,” Gore predicted. “The solution for the lack of confidence in government is more open government at all levels.” In early 1982, C-SPAN expanded its programming to 16 hours a day. It expanded again, later that year, to begin showing an entire day’s session. In 1984, it broadcast the first complete live coverage of an Iowa caucus. In June 1986, the Senate finally agreed to broadcast live proceedings as well. C-SPAN launched a second channel, C-SPAN2, to show those. That August, C-SPAN began broadcasting committee hearings. By January 1987, the channels were broadcasting 24/7. C-SPAN had begun broadcasting seminars for students in 1979. The networks launched call-in talk shows in October 1980, a show about recent book releases and authors in April 1989. C-SPAN3, which focuses on public policy programming and government events on weekdays and historical programming on weekends, was launched in 2001. Over the years, C-SPAN’S broadcasts of House and Senate sessions have mostly been limited to relatively close-up views of whoever is speaking at the time. Several times over the years, the network has made formal requests for more wide-angle shots of the chambers and to have network personnel working the cameras, instead of House and Senate employees. These requests have been denied. ...Until January 2023, when C-SPAN was allowed to send videographers to roam through the House chamber during the debate and repeated votes for a speaker of the house. Viewers were treated to new and interesting visuals, including interactions — not always pleasant — between House members. Once Kevin Mccarthy was confirmed as speaker, however, permission for roving camera operators was revoked.