C-Span: The length and breath of television

(##include msid=43376741,type=11##)In the seminal Pink Floyd album "The Wall", which predated the monikergiven to Rahul Dravid, the rock group lamented about the proliferation ofrubbish on TV channels in the West even back in the 1980s. India has not onlycaught up, but surpassed every country in the amount of television chatter itgenerates, given the multiplicity of its languages. One recent count put thenumber of news channels alone at 53. Politics being the staple of Indian television news, some ofthe spectacle and cacophony associated with Indian elections has moved from thestreets into the living rooms, as it has for many years in sanitised America inso far as poll campaigns are concerned. The Americans though have access to onetreasured channel which India could also do with. Little known in India, it''scalled C-Span, sometimes known as a "network for the nerds." Nowcelebrating its 25th anniversary, C-Span was founded by a former news executivewho was infuriated by the sound-byte coverage of government and politics bybroadcast networks, through the eyes and filters of anchors and reporters– the way it is now seen on Indian news channels. So what Brian Lamb didwas to telecast whole events without filters or commentary and allow viewers toform their own judgments. To get a sense of what an Indian C-Span would look like,imagine the network – call it I-Span –kick off the morning with alive telecast of an hour-long Sonia Gandhi town hall meeting in Amethi (full,live, and without commentary or analysis), then move to a Vajpayee public speechin full, followed by live broadcast of a discussion on the Indian economy inMumbai, followed by a no-commentary broadcast of the Indian cricket team''sarrival at the Delhi airport. No anchors, no reporters, no frills.Boring? Anodyne? Colourless? Butwhat it does is allows viewers to watch events unfiltered and avoid the biasesof anchors and reporters, not to speak of their insufferable prattle and thetorturous ads.In the US, C-Span, which has now grown to threeseparate 24-hour channels, attracts 34 million viewers a week. One in fiveAmericans tune in to its coverage of the Congress, and its live telecast ofWhite House, Pentagon and State Department briefings at least once or twice aweek to get the whole nine yards, instead of what is dished out by CNN or Foxwith their spin. Because of its no-frills approach, C-Span alsocosts very little to run. All its material is produced on a budget of $ 40million, less than the cost of airing a single American sitcom. Critics call ita true sedative, and the joke is that it is a boon to insomniacs. Gags apart,the network is now so respected that media mavens liken it to a public utilityand say turning off C-Span now would be like turning off water of electricity.