C-SPAN, a public service of your cable or satellite TV provider, covers Congress/DC. Use our page to engage w/ other DC-watchers. Share us w/ your friendsC-SPAN (Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network) is a private, non-profit public service of the cable television industry. C-SPAN earns its operating revenues through license fees paid by cable systems that offer the network to their customers. C-SPAN was created in 1979 to provide live, gavel-to-gavel coverage of the U.S. House of Representatives. By 1982, C-SPAN’s schedule expanded to 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In June 1986, the U.S. Senate began televising its proceedings, and the cable industry created C-SPAN2 to telecast Senate debates. Launched in September 1997, C-SPAN3 offers public affairs events from Washington and around the country. Today, C-SPAN has a staff of 275; its round-the-clock programming is available to 86 million TV households via nearly 7900 cable systems. http://www.c-span.org