Two major digital platforms — YouTube and Hulu + Live TV — have agreed to carry C-SPAN two months after the nonprofit organization made a public plea for wider distribution.
Changing industry economics have taken a toll on C-SPAN, prompting the U.S. Senate to urge streaming companies to begin offering customers the privately funded television service, which has provided nonpartisan gavel-to-gavel television coverage of congressional hearings and roll call votes for decades.
“All television providers, including streaming services, should make delivery of C-SPAN a priority so Americans can watch Congress in action, in real time,” senators said in their June resolution.
On Wednesday, C-SPAN announced separate distribution agreements with YouTube and Hulu + Live TV.
The agreements expand “access to C-SPAN’s unfiltered coverage of U.S. government for millions of subscribers nationwide, further strengthening the network’s role as an indispensable source of public affairs programming,” C-SPAN said in a statement.
C-SPAN stands for Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network. It relies heavily on revenue generated from license fees paid by cable, satellite and other multi-TV channel operators. But as the number of traditional pay-TV homes continues to shrink, C-SPAN found itself running a troubling financial deficit.
Last year, C-SPAN collected $46.3 million in revenue, a 37% decline from $73 million in 2015. That’s largely because C-SPAN and other basic cable channels were available in more than 100 million homes 10 years ago.
Since then, the number of homes has been cut nearly in half.
The three C-SPAN channels — C-SPAN, C-SPAN2 and C-SPAN3 — will be added to YouTube TV’s base package of channels this fall, the companies said. The channels will also run on the main YouTube video platform.
In addition, Google-owned YouTube will sponsor the network’s coverage of “America 250” — the celebrations to mark the nation’s founding two and a half centuries ago.
“For nearly half a century, C-SPAN has partnered with cable and satellite providers who recognize the value of our important public service,” C-SPAN Chief Executive Sam Feist said in a statement. “We now look forward to working closely with YouTube to bring C-SPAN’s unfiltered coverage of the democratic process to millions more Americans.”
C-SPAN uses its own cameras in the Capitol, enabling the service to catch the action when government-operated audio and visual equipment is cut off.
Earlier this summer, Feist told The Times that C-SPAN should be able to close its budget gap if YouTube TV and Walt Disney Co.’s Hulu + Live TV would carry its feeds.
Around 20 million households subscribe to such online subscription platforms, known as virtual multichannel video program distributors, which stream broadcast and cable channels.
Times staff writer Stephen Battaglio contributed to this report.
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