Jeffrey Greenberg / Universal Image Group via Getty Images
The Congress may be spending more money than ever before, but the same cannot be said for a TV channel that broadcasts it live. C-SPAN expects its revenue to fall below $50 million this year for the first time since 2005. It is ill-equipped to be an invaluable service to American democracy.
Created as a non-profit in 1979 by a consortium of cable-TV operators, C-SPAN began by offering gavel-to-gavel coverage of the house. Seven years later it added Senate proceedings. Revenue came, as it is today, primarily from the share of the monthly fee: about 6 cents from each connected household. In the mid-90s, DirecTV and other satellite competitors began to carry channels at a similar per-subscriber fee.
Now C-SPAN is facing two distinct obstacles: access and revenue. Cord-cutting, aside from cable and satellite, has reduced the distribution of C-SPAN through those outlets to nearly 70 million homes from about 100 million in 2014. With 98% of its revenues directly tied to these markets, annual acquisitions of C-SPAN declined by nearly $200 million.
What can be done? In addition to selling coffee mugs and T-shirts, C-SPAN runs ads on its website, mobile app, and YouTube channel. However, the primary feeds remain ad-free on cable and satellite.
“There are some discrepancies,” says co-CEO Susan Swain in an interview. “We are sinking our ankles here in the pond and have gone from a company that has had nothing to do with it for 40 years, to rethinking our relationships with our partners and our relationships with our end customers. The central mission of what we do while preserving.
C-SPAN should have a corporate underwriting format similar to PBS. It never sought government funding, insisting that such a move would be anathema to its non-partisan mission. And C-SPAN has yet to ask viewers to be patrons. Sources say that the appeal to collect donations from the public will start soon.
Management is also desperately seeking deals with streaming services such as Hulu Live, which operates . Done through
and Google-owned YouTube TV, which will add several million dollars in revenue. Despite what appears to be a clear public-service opportunity for the companies involved, the talks haven’t quite gone far.
Meanwhile, about 25% of American homes have free access to Congress’s primary coverage of C-SPAN via the Internet, even if they don’t subscribe to traditional cable or satellite. This is about 35 million homes from which C-SPAN does not get any revenue. At 6 cents per month per customer, this equates to about $25 million in potential revenue each year. Notably, this broadband service is supplied by most media firms, including
C-SPAN is no longer helping these companies as it did in 1979, when cable operators needed to influence local communities with their civic-mindedness in hopes of winning exclusive franchises. To the public, however, it remains an important service – perhaps now more than ever.
Americans need a window into how the government operates, and C-SPAN needs more than coffee mugs, T-shirts, and good intentions to keep it open.
Mr. Funt is the author of “Self-amused: A Tell-Some Memoir”.
Wonder Land: After decades of ‘doing something’ to solve problems, the US government system is stuck in the mud only to make things worse. Images: AFP/Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly
opinion | C-SPAN faces a budget crisis
A C-SPAN truck at Miami-Dade College in Miami.
photo:
Jeffrey Greenberg / Universal Image Group via Getty Images
The Congress may be spending more money than ever before, but the same cannot be said for a TV channel that broadcasts it live. C-SPAN expects its revenue to fall below $50 million this year for the first time since 2005. It is ill-equipped to be an invaluable service to American democracy.
Created as a non-profit in 1979 by a consortium of cable-TV operators, C-SPAN began by offering gavel-to-gavel coverage of the house. Seven years later it added Senate proceedings. Revenue came, as it is today, primarily from the share of the monthly fee: about 6 cents from each connected household. In the mid-90s, DirecTV and other satellite competitors began to carry channels at a similar per-subscriber fee.
Now C-SPAN is facing two distinct obstacles: access and revenue. Cord-cutting, aside from cable and satellite, has reduced the distribution of C-SPAN through those outlets to nearly 70 million homes from about 100 million in 2014. With 98% of its revenues directly tied to these markets, annual acquisitions of C-SPAN declined by nearly $200 million.
What can be done? In addition to selling coffee mugs and T-shirts, C-SPAN runs ads on its website, mobile app, and YouTube channel. However, the primary feeds remain ad-free on cable and satellite.
“There are some discrepancies,” says co-CEO Susan Swain in an interview. “We are sinking our ankles here in the pond and have gone from a company that has had nothing to do with it for 40 years, to rethinking our relationships with our partners and our relationships with our end customers. The central mission of what we do while preserving.
C-SPAN should have a corporate underwriting format similar to PBS. It never sought government funding, insisting that such a move would be anathema to its non-partisan mission. And C-SPAN has yet to ask viewers to be patrons. Sources say that the appeal to collect donations from the public will start soon.
Management is also desperately seeking deals with streaming services such as Hulu Live, which operates . Done through
Disney,
and Google-owned YouTube TV, which will add several million dollars in revenue. Despite what appears to be a clear public-service opportunity for the companies involved, the talks haven’t quite gone far.
Meanwhile, about 25% of American homes have free access to Congress’s primary coverage of C-SPAN via the Internet, even if they don’t subscribe to traditional cable or satellite. This is about 35 million homes from which C-SPAN does not get any revenue. At 6 cents per month per customer, this equates to about $25 million in potential revenue each year. Notably, this broadband service is supplied by most media firms, including
Comcast
and Cox, who is on C-SPAN’s executive committee.
C-SPAN is no longer helping these companies as it did in 1979, when cable operators needed to influence local communities with their civic-mindedness in hopes of winning exclusive franchises. To the public, however, it remains an important service – perhaps now more than ever.
Americans need a window into how the government operates, and C-SPAN needs more than coffee mugs, T-shirts, and good intentions to keep it open.
Mr. Funt is the author of “Self-amused: A Tell-Some Memoir”.
Wonder Land: After decades of ‘doing something’ to solve problems, the US government system is stuck in the mud only to make things worse. Images: AFP/Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly
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Appeared in the print edition, June 15, 2022.