''Book TV'' is the name given to weekend programming on the American cable network

C-SPAN2 Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...

airing from 8 a.m.

Eastern Time The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a small por ...

Sunday morning to 8 a.m. Eastern Time Monday morning each week. The 24-hour block of programming is focused on

non-fiction Nonfiction, or non-fiction, is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to provide information (and sometimes opinions) grounded only in facts and real life, rather than in imagination. Nonfiction is often associated with b ...

book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physi ...

s and authors, featuring programs in the format of interviews with authors as well as live coverage of book events from around the country. ''Book TV'' debuted on C-SPAN2 on September 12, 1998. While the primary mission of C-SPAN2 is live coverage of the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

, ''Book TV'' programs are sometimes also scheduled to air during the week when the Senate is not in session.

Background and production

''Book TV'' covers established and upcoming nonfiction authors, mainly in the subject areas of history, biography and public affairs. Approximately 2,000 authors are featured annually, and in one year may cover as many as 60,000 titles. The network's production budget for ''Book TV'' is approximately $600,000 per year. Like C-SPAN's weekly coverage of government affairs, the ''Book TV'' the production style is "no frills", focusing on panel discussions, book signings and visits to bookstores. ''Book TV'''s coverage is weighted toward government, politics and history, in line with C-SPAN's weekly programming. However, the topics represented vary, ranging from the genealogy of

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities ...

to the “use and abuse” of the

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. While C-SPAN does not usually cover narrative fiction due to its nonfiction mission, it may occasionally be featured, as when

Robert MacNeil Robert Breckenridge Ware MacNeil, Order of Canada, OC (born January 19, 1931) is a Canadian-American journalist and writer. He is a retired television news anchor who partnered with Jim Lehrer to create ''The MacNeil/Lehrer Report'' in 1975. E ...

and

Jim Lehrer James Charles Lehrer (; May 19, 1934 – January 23, 2020) was an American journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and playwright. Lehrer was the executive editor and a news anchor for the ''PBS NewsHour'' on PBS and was known for his role as a de ...

appeared in 1999 to talk about their novels. ''Book TV'' interviews are characterized by a focus on the author, rather than the host, and an unstructured format allowing the author to guide the discussion. As with other C-SPAN programming, viewer call-ins are featured, allowing writers to hear directly from their readers.

Programming

The majority of the ''Book TV'' weekly lineup is coverage of author lectures, book signings, and seminars. Several weekends each year, ''Book TV'' features live coverage of major regional book fairs and festivals. There are also several regularly scheduled series: ''After Words'', an interview show conducted by guest hosts familiar with the author's subject; and ''Booknotes'' programs from 1989 to 2004, under the title ''Encore Booknotes''. A monthly series on ''Book TV'' is ''In Depth'', a two-hour one-on-one interview covering an author's entire body of work. ''In Depth'' is televised live with viewer calls on the first Sunday of each month at 12 p.m. ''In Depth'' occasionally also includes video of the featured writer at their home or office, where they talk about how they do their research and writing. In addition to C-SPAN2, ''Book TV'' can also be viewed via live streaming on the C-SPAN website, while an iPhone app streams the audio portion only. All past ''Book TV'' coverage of nonfiction authors is archived at the C-SPAN Video Library.

History

The ''Book TV'' weekend-long programming schedule grew out of the success of C-SPAN's long-running ''Booknotes'' series, which since 1989 was the only avenue for coverage of nonfiction books and authors on the C-SPAN networks. C-SPAN believes that coverage of nonfiction books complements its primary public affairs mission and since ''Booknotes'' could only feature 52 books per year, when the network wished to increase its coverage of nonfiction books, ''Book TV'' on C-SPAN2 was the solution. The inspiration for coverage of nonfiction books on the C-SPAN networks originated with C-SPAN founder

Brian Lamb Brian Patrick Lamb (; born October 9, 1941) is an American journalist. He is the founder, executive chairman, and the now-retired CEO of C-SPAN, an American cable network that provides coverage of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Sen ...

's frustration with the lack of attention that authors receive on television, which led initially to the creation of the author interview program ''

Booknotes ''Booknotes'' is an American television series on the C-SPAN network hosted by Brian Lamb, which originally aired from 1989 to 2004. The format of the show is a one-hour, one-on-one interview with a non-fiction author. The series was broadcast at ...

''. As Lamb related in a 2003 interview, "It used to drive me absolutely crazy when an author would appear on a talk show and come and go before I even had a chance to determine if I wanted to read the book." In 2010, ''Book TV'' received the Phillis Wheatley Award from the organizers of New York's Harlem Book Fair. The award, named for the first published African-American female writer, is given for literary work and advocacy that "transcends boundaries, race and perception". According to book fair founder Max Rodriguez, ''Book TV'' was honored for giving a voice to

African-American literature African American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. It begins with the works of such late 18th-century writers as Phillis Wheatley. Before the high point of slave narratives, African ...

in a manner unlike other television media outlets.

References

External links

*
C-SPAN2 webcastC-SPAN Video Library: ''Book TV''
(archives of videos and transcripts)
''Book TV'' YouTube Channel
* {{C-SPAN navbox 1998 American television series debuts 1990s American television news shows 2000s American television news shows 2010s American television news shows 2020s American television news shows American non-fiction television series Television programming blocks in the United States C-SPAN original programming