[By Staci D. Kramer] Had the chance to spend a few minutes with Brian Lamb after Sunday’s opening session at NCTA’s National Show. Not-for-profit C-SPAN is approaching a kind of digital crossroads, that point when access to its massive online content may have to be supported by more than the licensing fees that make up its current funding base. C-SPAN, which hasn’t asked for a price increase in 10 years, gets 5-6 cents per subscriber from distributors. Although C-SPAN was founded by cable operators, satellite companies contribute 30 percent of the total now; Verizon and AT&T will have to pay the same fees to carry one or all of C-SPAN’s networks. Even so, C-SPAN is exploring other options to fund its online activities, which includes the digitization of its archives. The network has talked extensively with Google, which could provide bandwidth and a variety of ways to make money online, but is nowhere close to an announcement.
Lamb: “My guess will be it’s going to be a combination. There’ll be a monthly charge or a minute-by-minute charge once they’re metered … or there will be ads added to it. We’re not afraid of any of that.” When I asked about putting video in Google’ marketplace (C-SPAN already sells hard copies of some archived shows) , Lamb replied, “We’re talking to them about everything. … We’re not going to give it them. They’re not asking for it to be given to them. It all depends in the end on what makes sense. … They came to see us early in the game; we talked to them. We’re not anxious to be the first out of the box although they did an experiment with us.” Lamb says he isn’t sure of the current status of discussion but “there’s nothing dramatic about to jump out of the box.” One challenge C-SPAN faces is the lack of mass-market programming. Committee hearings may leave you feeling lost or desperate, but very few C-SPAN shows reach beyond a narrow niche.
On podcasting: C-SPAN has some podcasts underway but Lamb isn’t sure where it’s going. “What is it that we do that we could put on podcasts that would make a difference. … There’s no incentive for us to do it because it just costs us money.”
The full interview ran about 14 minutes.
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