On the way home from work on Friday, I listened to Senator Dodd and Representative Frank hold a press conference on the way forward on Financial Regulatory Reform now that the Senate has passed their version of the bill. Last week, on the way to an event, I listened to live British election night coverage of from the BBC, most Sunday afternoons I listen to some of the Sunday morning talk shows and on the way to the coffee shop where I am writing this article I listened to a congressional hearing on missile defense. All on one radio station: a station which cannot be found anywhere else on terrestrial radio and which is one of the fun quirks of living in the Washington, DC Metro area.
I speak of course, if the image that goes along with the article didn’t already give it away, of WCSP-FM 90.1 FM, also known as C-SPAN Radio. Launched in 1997, WCSP-FM offered C-SPAN the ability to expand their programing and to broadcast programs that don’t fit in their three television channels, either due to scheduling conflicts or the lack of any visual component to the program.
These include audio only programs like important Supreme Court sessions, the Oval Office tapes from the Johnson and Nixon administrations, as well as the vast number of committee hearings and press conferences that occur throughout the week for which there is not enough time in the day to fully broadcast. One of the more interesting programs that I have heard is the weekly Pentagon press conference which I normally catch on Sunday. The main thing that I have learned from these conferences: Geoffrey Morrell, the Pentagon Press Secretary, does not seem to have much time for the silly questions that the press keeps on asking. It is rather endearing actually.
Because so much goes on in and around the Government on a daily basis and because it is a station without commercials CSPAN Radio actually has to program all 24 hours. Another unique part of how C-SPAN Radio operates is how it will jump from topic to topic. If a committee hearing ends at a slightly odd time or it is taking a while for a hearing or press conference to actually begin, the station will essentially channel surf, wandering off to listen to that morning’s Washington Journal program from C-SPAN-1 , or a press conference that is currently going on and something else to kill a few minutes before something bigger begins. This is actually how I have ended up listening to so many Pentagon Press Conferences as they have normally been going on for 15 minutes or so before CSPAN-Radio will wander in for a listen. Obviously someone at C-SPAN enjoys Mr. Morrell’s attitude to the press as much as I do.
One of the other great and unique things that C-SPAN Radio does is something that would not be that exciting, except in a town filled with as many Poli-Sci Nerds as this one. Every Sunday, from Noon to 4:10pm, C-SPAN Radio broadcasts all of the Sunday talk shows, starting with Meet the Press and going through This Week, Fox News Sunday, Face the Nation and State of the Union, in full without any commercials. This has allowed me to experience them for really the first time as they tend to begin broadcasting at 6:00am in California and I usually am either still in bed or out doing something when the shows are on TV in this area.
In most areas of the country, having a radio station devoted to the goings on of the Federal Government would not be something that was in any way popular (though C-SPAN Radio is available on XM Satellite Radio on channel 132) but here in DC, it is, at times, an invaluable resource as it allows you to keep up on the goings on in DC while you are away from your computer (though you can also listen to the feed on their website.) As the station zips from congressional hearing to press conference to speech, you really get a sense of all of the wheels of government in motion as the great ship of state moves forward.
And we have it on the radio here in DC. It is one of the quirks of life in a town like DC.
