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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. C-SPAN was created as a cable-industry financed, non-profit network for televising sessions of the U.S.

Bob Rosencrans, a cable industry pioneer, was alone in providing the initial seed funding of $25,000 to start up C-SPAN. It receives no funding from any government source, has no contract with the government, and does not sell sponsorships or advertising. C-SPAN2, a spin-off network, covers all live sessions of the U.S.

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.. Additionally, some programs are archived on the Internet for weeks or for longer times.
On February 12, 2003, C-SPAN launched the Amos B.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.

This political event footage is often used to substantiate opinion articles elsewhere on the internet.
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, 2001 attacks.

Newscasts and other broadcasts in foreign languages are dubbed into English.
C-SPAN has submitted requests to air live United States Supreme Court proceedings, but 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 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. In 2008, C-SPAN gave coverage of Hurricane Gustav through NBC's WDSU in New Orleans.
Additionally, C-SPAN simulcasts NASA Space Shuttle mission launches and landings live, using the footage and audio from NASA TV.
C-SPAN and the Internet
All of C-SPAN's live feeds are streamed free of charge on its World Wide Web site in both Real Media and Windows Media formats.

Selected C-SPAN programs are archived for the general public on its website for at least two weeks, while others remain permanently accessible. C-SPAN has exclusive rights to all recordings and may charge from $30 to $45 for DVD copies of programs.
In August 2007, C-SPAN unveiled a new "C-SPAN Video Library" webpage , which will 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.

C-SPAN accepts no advertising; instead, it receives nearly all its funding from subscriber fees charged to cable and DBS operators. Contrary to popular perception, C-SPAN receives no funding from government sources.
Following
In its early days, cable companies tried to replace C-SPAN with revenue-producing channels.As stated above, C-SPAN is funded by the cable industry; thus, the industry loses money airing C-SPAN. Avid C-SPAN viewers often refer to themselves as "C-SPAN Junkies," "SPANners," or "Spanheads".
Over time, the cable companies and the general public realized that C-SPAN provided a desired and much needed public service; a "window" into the operations of Congress.

C-SPAN has never had the ratings of major networks, but it has a devoted following .
In 2007, Brian Lamb was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, primarily for founding and running C-SPAN. Appropriately, the award ceremony was broadcast by C-SPAN.
C-SPAN and Copyright
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 non-commercial copying, sharing, and posting of C-SPAN video on the Internet, with attribution.

Prior to this change, C-SPAN engaged in numerous actions to stop parties from making unauthorized uses of their content online including cases where the footage is the House and Senate proceedings. For example, Dem Bloggers received a take down request for clips they had posted.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. On December 14th 2006 C-SPAN wrote an open letter to Speaker Designate Nancy Pelosi requesting that floor proceedings be covered by C-SPAN cameras.

The request was denied
Allegations of bias and other controversies
Despite its stated commitment to providing politically balanced programming, C-SPAN shows such as Washington Journal, Booknotes, Q & A, and Afterwords have alternatively been accused of having a conservative or liberal bias. The watchdog group 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.

However, due to the uproar from outraged viewers, liberal groups, and Jewish organizations, C-SPAN canceled the broadcasts of both speeches.
In 2005, the left-leaning media watchdog group Media Matters for America took issue that L.