The C-SPAN Bus Program is an umbrella term for the activity surrounding several vehicles that have been used by

C-SPAN 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 ...

since 1993, starting with the C-SPAN School Bus. The inspiration for the bus program was at least partly taken from

Douglas Brinkley Douglas Brinkley (born December 14, 1960) is an American author, Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities, and professor of history at Rice University. Brinkley is the history commentator for CNN, Presidential Historian for the New York Histori ...

's book ''The Majic Bus: An American Odyssey'', which described Prof. Brinkley's experiences taking groups of college students on tours of historic sites around the U.S. The first C-SPAN school bus began its service in 1993, and a second bus was introduced in 1996. In 2010, the C-SPAN Digital Bus and the first Local Content Vehicle debuted, and the original two buses were retired.

C-SPAN School Buses

The original two buses served as mobile television studios, with technical facilities and an interview area that could be used for production of live or taped content. Between them, the two original C-SPAN School Buses visited all fifty U.S. states, and over 2,000 communities. They were used for many of the remote programs produced by C-SPAN, including their programs on the

Lincoln–Douglas Debates The Lincoln–Douglas debates were a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate. Until ...

, the American tour of Alexis de Tocqueville, the ''

American Presidents The president of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States, indirectly elected to a four-year term via the Electoral College. The officeholder leads the executive branch of the federal government an ...

'' series, the ''

American Writers American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

'' series, and many more. In January 1995, C-SPAN was awarded the Golden CableACE Award for programming and educational efforts related to the C-SPAN School Bus. The C-SPAN bus has hosted over 1.5 million visitors, which includes 40,000 teachers and 800,000 students.

C-SPAN Digital Bus

The C-SPAN digital bus was introduced in June 2010. It is a 45-foot Prevost coach, and was custom-built by Creative Mobile Interiors of Grove City, Ohio.

Local Content Vehicles

In 2010, in addition to the Digital Bus, C-SPAN introduced a Local Content Vehicle ("LCV"), a Ford Transit Connect specially outfitted for use in producing content from locations around the country. This program was later expanded to include a total of three vehicles.Decked out Sprinter is the ultimate tailgating machine
/ref> Each of the three vehicles is staffed by one person, and is equipped with a video camera and a laptop editor. In 2011, C-SPAN introduced the Local Content Vehicles Cities Tour, in which all three of the LCVs would spend a week in a particular city, gathering content to be aired shortly thereafter over the course of a weekend. Typically, one vehicle would focus on history and historic sites in a particular city; another would focus on aspects of that city related to books; and the third would focus on community relations, in co-operation with the local cable provider. Between May and December 2011, the LCVs visited eight U.S. cities following this pattern. The practice was renewed in 2012, with visits to six other cities scheduled between January and June. Typically, the footage and interviews from a particular city visit would air three to four weeks after the visit took place. In 2013, C-SPAN expanded their LCV fleet from three vehicles to six, allowing the network to double the number of cities it visits each month.

Cities visited on LCV tours

References

External links

Departure of the first C-SPAN Bus from Washington, November 8, 1993C-SPAN School Bus Special, July 11, 1994
- 2 hour 30 minute retrospective on the first seven months of the first C-SPAN School Bus.
''Booknotes'' interview with Douglas Brinkley on ''The Majic Bus: An American Odyssey'', April 18, 1993.C-SPAN Bus FAQsCreative Mobile Interiors page on the Digital BusCreative Mobile Interiors page on the LCVsMSNBC tour of Digital Bus with Chuck Todd, Savannah Guthrie, and Brian Lamb
{{C-SPAN navbox C-SPAN Individual buses Projects established in 1993 Golden CableACE award winners