C-Span Gains Unlikely Hit Thanks to Senator Sanders Filibuster

C-Span found itself with thousands of viewers to it's C-Span 2 television channel which covers Senate proceedings, and gaining thousands of online followers as the network broadcast un-interupted coverage of Senator Bernard Sanders' Filibuster.

Brian Stelter of the New York Times writes;

Senator Bernard Sanders, independent of Vermont, started speaking against the Obama administration’s tax cut deal on Friday morning, in full view of C-SPAN2’s cameras, and by lunchtime his old-fashioned filibuster was a social media sensation, with untold thousands of people commenting in real-time on Web sites like Twitter. The live video remains available on C-SPAN’s Web site.
 
On Friday, a filibuster by Senator Bernard Sanders against the Obama administration’s tax cut deal, televised on C-SPAN2, became a social media sensation.Sensing an opportunity, C-SPAN2 — the Senate-oriented sister channel to C-SPAN, which chiefly covers the House of Representatives — promoted the event on its Web site and Twitter account. Taking lessons from the production values of cable news, a graphic on the bottom of the C-SPAN2 screen told viewers, “ALERT: Sen. Sanders Began What He Calls a Tax Cut Filibuster at 10:25am ET.”

All C-SPAN2 needs now is a clock to tick away the minutes that the senator has been speaking.

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