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C-SPAN history
C-SPAN company history timeline
C-SPAN was launched on March 19, 1979, in time for the first televised session made available by the House of Representatives, beginning with a speech by then-Tennessee representative Al Gore.
The very first House member to step into C-SPAN’s unblinking gaze on its 1979 opening day was a 30-year-old Tennessee Democrat named Al Gore — who, as it happened, had written his senior thesis at Harvard on how TV transformed the presidency.
Among them were Bob Rosencrans, who provided $25,000 of initial funding in 1979, and John D. Evans, who provided the wiring and access to the headend needed for the distribution of the C-SPAN signal.
According to a report from commentator Jeff Greenfield on Nightline in 1980, C-SPAN was launched to provide televised coverage of United States political events in their entirety.
In 1981 the network began broadcasting daily, and the following year it moved to a 24-hours-a-day schedule.
On February 1, 1982 C-SPAN launched its own transponder and expanded its schedule to 16 hours a day.
C-SPAN began full-time operations on September 13, 1982.
When C-SPAN began broadcasting the Senate on June 2, 1986, one of the first to take the floor was — yes, again — Al Gore.
Although it initially focused on the United States House of Representatives, in 1986 the Senate agreed to televised coverage, and C-SPAN2 was introduced to carry those proceedings.
In 1986, the United States Senate voted to televise its debates, and C-SPAN launched a second channel, C-SPAN2, to provide unfiltered, gavel-to-gavel access to that body.
By 1986, Senator William L. Armstrong convinced his colleagues to allow cameras onto the Senate floor.
It began full-time operations on January 5, 1987.
All C-SPAN content, since 1987, is archived on our website and is free for public use – now with nearly a quarter million hours of primary source video and growing every day.
Beginning in 1988, with a letter to then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist, C-SPAN has consistently called for the Supreme Court to allow cameras to cover its approximately 75 hours of annual oral arguments.
C-SPAN celebrated its 10th anniversary in 1989 with a three-hour retrospective, featuring Lamb recalling the development of the network.
In 1993, C-SPAN created the C-SPAN Bus, a 45-foot interactive learning center to travel across the nation visiting schools and community events in partnership with C-SPAN's cable providers.
In January 1997, C-SPAN began real-time streaming of C-SPAN and C-SPAN2 on its website, the first time that Congress had been live streamed online.
C-SPAN3 is the successor of a digital channel called C-SPAN Extra, which was launched in the Washington D.C. area in 1997, and televised live and recorded political events from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
C-SPAN began C-SPAN3 operations in January 2001 as a digital service.
In 2001, C-SPAN3 was launched to provide access to additional public affairs events, particularly live coverage of key congressional hearings.
In 2004, C-SPAN celebrated its 25th anniversary, by which time the flagship network was viewed in 86 million homes, C-SPAN2 was in 70 million homes and C-SPAN3 was in eight million homes.
To cover the Democratic and Republican conventions and the presidential debates of 2008, C-SPAN created two standalone websites: the Convention Hub and the Debate Hub.
In March 2009, viewers began submitting questions live via Twitter to guests on C-SPAN's morning call-in show Washington Journal.
In December 2009, Lamb wrote to leaders in the House and Senate, requesting that negotiations for health care reform be televised by C-SPAN. Committee meetings on health care were subsequently broadcast by C-SPAN and may be viewed on the C-SPAN website.
In June 2010, C-SPAN joined with the website Foursquare to provide users of the application with access to geotagged C-SPAN content at various locations in Washington, D.C.
In 2010 C-SPAN was available in more than 100 million households.
Thereafter, the balance between the two regions gradually shifted: following the 2010 census, the Northeast and Midwest accounted for only 172 seats, compared with the South and West’s 263.
In 2010, C-SPAN launched the Video Library.
In 2010, C-SPAN began a transition to high definition telecasts, planned to take place over an 18-month period.
In January, 2011, C-SPAN expanded its programming offerings with a new history-based service airing weekends on C-SPAN3.
Lamb semi-retired in March 2012, coinciding with the channel's 33rd anniversary, and gave executive control of the network to his two lieutenants, Rob Kennedy and Susan Swain.
Though viewing levels comparable to entertainment cable networks will likely never be reached, by 2013 the network recorded more than 45 million viewers weekly.
As part of the network's 40th anniversary, C-SPAN instituted the second logo change in the network's history on March 18, 2019.
2022 George Washington Book Prize The 2022 winner of the George Washington Book Prize, Bruce Ragsdale, for Washington at the Plow, was honored at a ceremony held at George…
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C-SPAN competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ION Media Networks | 1993 | $415.0M | 425 | - |
| Hubbard Broadcasting | 1925 | $306.1M | 1,200 | - |
| Sun TV | 1992 | $480.0M | 1,352 | - |
| Fox News | 1982 | $14.0B | 22,400 | 2 |
| Wcbs-tv | 1931 | $14.5B | 15 | - |
| CNN | 1980 | $2.0B | 5,392 | - |
| The Christian Science Monitor | 1908 | $49.2M | 190 | - |
| Crawford Group | 1997 | $3.1M | 35 | - |
| KUTV | - | $27.0M | 375 | - |
| AMC Networks | 1980 | $2.4B | 2,197 | 31 |
C-SPAN history FAQs
Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of C-SPAN, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about C-SPAN. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at C-SPAN. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by C-SPAN. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of C-SPAN and its employees or that of Zippia.
C-SPAN may also be known as or be related to C-SPAN, C-Span, C-span, NATIONAL CABLE SATELLITE CORPORATION and National Cable Satellite Corp.