The official topics were the debt limit, energy policy and the end of federal covid-relief funding, but that’s not what many people wanted to talk about on C-SPAN’s morning call-in program this week. They wanted to complain about C-SPAN — specifically, about one of its board members, Allan Block, and his connection to a labor dispute at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which was not exactly the stuff of national headlines. The calls were part of a coordinated campaign by a labor union, the NewsGuild, to call attention to Block, a C-SPAN board member for more than three decades, and his role in resisting a strike against the Post-Gazette, which his family-owned company publishes.
C-SPAN has started searching for a new CEO with longtime co-CEOs Rob Kennedy and Susan Swain stepping down this year. It’s a rare changing of the guard for the nonprofit public affairs network, which turns 45 on March 19. C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb served as CEO since the company’s founding in 1978, with Kennedy and Swain (then co-presidents) stepping into the co-CEO roles in 2012.
Public affairs broadcaster C-SPAN has launched a new app for connected TV users. C-SPAN Select will first be available to 12 million customers of Comcast Xfinity’s X1 service. Plans are also in place for the app to be available via Xfinity’s XFlex, and Xumo platforms this fall. The channel’s leaders say they hope to make the service available via other cable providers in addition to Xfinity in the coming months.
Exclusives
Weinstein, the current VP of digital media, will replace the retiring Terry Murphy, who is wrapping up a 42-year career with C-SPAN on January 6.
It declines C-SPAN’s request for carriage, opting for national exposure on its co-owned NewsNation cable network. Above: WJW Cleveland’s debate between U.S. Senate candidates Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) and J.D. Vance aired on Nexstar-owned NewsNation.
The cable industry-backed C-SPAN is making sure cable and broadband subscribers have plenty of access to important political action in their states. With only two weeks before arguably one of the most important midterm elections in recent memory, C-SPAN is airing and streaming coverage of more than a dozen debates among candidates for governors, U.S. senators and representatives over the next week.
He is joining the cable public affairs networks from the Pew Research Center.
The entertainment industry is full of discussions over the ramifications that cord-cutting has on broadcast networks, what fewer cable subscriptions means for ESPN’s rights packages, and how streaming has impacted cable news, but during these conversations about the evolving television industry, one major channel is often left out: C-SPAN.
The venerable Washington cable network of respectful debate and government procedure has to slug it out for social media views. It’s complicated.
C-SPAN today promoted Nate Hurst to political editor. He will oversee C-SPAN’s campaign coverage including races for the White House, Congress, state and local elections of national importance. Hurst has been C-SPAN’s deputy political editor since 2019. He joined the network in […]
Steve Scully isn’t the only C-SPAN staffer to depart the cable news channel recently. TVNewser has learned that C-SPAN recently offered buyouts to more than 100 staffers who had worked at the public affairs channel for more than 20 years.
NEW YORK (AP) — From the point of view of C-SPAN, the 2024 presidential campaign begins this Friday. The network is sending its cameras to suburban Des Moines, Iowa, to […]
The C-SPAN board of directors added several new members and elected Cox Communications President-CEO Pat Esser to serve as chairman at its annual meeting, held virtually in light of COVID-19 restrictions. Dave Watson, […]
On Monday before his rally in Sanford, Fla., President Trump ramped up his attacks on Fox News and promoted some competitors including C-SPAN and conservative outlets One America News Network and Newsmax. “@FoxNews allows more negative ads on me than practically all of the other networks combined. Not like the old days, but we will win even bigger than 2016. Roger Ailes was the GREATEST!,” the president tweeted.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has rejected a request by C-SPAN to use some of its own cameras to cover the historic debate over articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, meaning that if there are any protests or disruptions they will not make it onto video screens across the nation and around the world.
C-SPAN coverage of a ho-hum congressional hearing usually features three cameras — one head-on camera for the chair; one for the witness; and another side camera for the committee members. There will be no standard operating procedure come Wednesday morning, however. C-SPAN will have seven cameras around the hearing room — two cameras for the chair and other members; two cameras for either side; one witness camera; and two high and wide cameras for that panoramic look. The additional cameras will enable C-SPAN to “better capture the interaction among everybody” in the room.
The cable channel, which recently celebrated the its 40th anniversary, is seeing its founder and chairman Brian Lamb retire. On May 19, Lamb will also finish his Sunday night interview program that he’s been hosting for 30 years.
Democrats and Republicans may be divided over the Mueller report and health care and immigration and climate change and campaign finance and, well, you get the idea. But one thing they can agree on is that C-SPAN is something of a national treasure.
Q&A WITH SUSAN SWAIN
Reflecting On C-SPAN’s Political Impact
On March 19, 1979, C-SPAN went live to a public audience for the first time. Since that day, when it debuted with four employees, the network has become a mainstay in American politics. The New York Times spoke with Susan Swain, one of C-SPAN’s two chief executives, about the birth of the network, Washington’s initial resistance to being caught on camera and how the network has adapted to the social media age.
COMMENTARY
We Need C-SPAN More Than Ever
Precisely at noon on March 19, 1979, six newly installed video cameras went live in the gallery of the House chamber for the first time. Washington was never the same. The network, the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, which can now be seen in more than 90 million households, still gives us daily proceedings from the House and Senate chambers. It also lets us hear important issues explored in committee rooms, helps us size up candidates on the campaign trail, engages us with book authors and saves a seat for us at think-tank roundtables. It challenges us to think for ourselves, without the clatter of punditry.
C-SPAN Editorial Director Paul Orgel has been voted in as the next executive committee chair of the Radio and Television Correspondents Association. For the next year, he will serve as […]
