How to Make C-SPAN More Entertaining

C-SPAN, that bastion of live, uninterrupted political discourse, is a terrible bore. If you are shaking your head “No,” it’s because you have never actually watched C-SPAN and you just like the idea of C-SPAN. Yes, it’s that channel where you get to see politics in action, and history unfold before your very eyes; albeit with excitement of watching an infant slowly nod off to sleep, only the wake itself up as it poops itself. (By that we mean C-SPAN is really boring until a senator shits them self live on TV.)

After watching a few hours of C-SPAN to lull ourselves in to restful mid-afternoon nap that ended a long morning of nothing, we found ourselves too bored by it to sleep. After that, we decided that it was about time we put out an urgent call to make C-SPAN a little bit more interesting to watch. Now, the big problem with this prospect is some may confuse reforming C-SPAN with reforming congress and the senate and all of Washington itself. We’re not going to talk about that. We’ll leave that to people that can hear the word “Constitution” and not think it has something to do with whether their bodies are strong enough to eat the slice of pizza that’s been sitting on the counter for who knows how long.  We’re talking only in terms of ideas that can make the actual viewing experience more entertaining.

And with that, let’s get on with the show…

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Make it more like The West Wing

The West Wing, what a great show. But, of course, there is a reason it was called The West Wing and not Senate Subcommittee Hearings on the Reauthorization of the Federal Garbage Disposal Act of 1996. There’s action, intrigue, and great drama to be found in the halls and offices of the White House. Not so much in pointing a camera at an aged white dude whose life is fading away from him with every dull word he drones out of his stupid head, only to get an equally dull response from some corporate leader that knows he going to win that argument just by saying “Freedom liberty constitution.”

To spice things up a bit, let’s take this hearing out of that stuffy old room with all the empty seats (empty because the other senators and congressmen obviously don’t give enough of a shit to even be there), and let’s take this little discussion out on to the hallway for a little West Wing-inspired walk-and-talk. Every Senator or Congressmen has to walk side by side with the person they are grilling with questions down a long, maze-like hallway system that’s bustling with paid extras that are taking documents to important people that don’t actually exist.  Every Senator or Congressmen has 2 minutes to get their question out while making sure they never take a break for a breath, an “Uh,” or an “Um.” The same goes for the question answerer. As soon as the question has been thoroughly answered, the Senator or Congressmen switches off with another Senator or Congressmen and the entire thing happens again. No breaks shall be taken until either the hearing is completed, or until someone passes out from exhaustion.

Secret Word/Phrase of the Day

People love incentives. Simply stating that the incentive for watching C-SPAN is learning how the American political machine works is like saying the incentive anal fisting is gaining the knowledge of the human digestive tract. There are better ways to learn about that kind of thing. So, to add a sense of unpredictability to the Washington political game, why not actually make it a game?

A secret word or Phrase of the day should do the trick. Everyday there is a new word or phrase– maybe “My esteemed colleague,” or “Constitution,” or maybe even “I believe what the Senator was trying to say was…” A certain day’s word or phrase will correlate with a scratch-off card that can be purchased from your local gas station or liquor store. Once a Congressman says the secret word of the day, it will flash on screen along with a cute little graphic of some confetti and some party streamers. At that time you scratch off your card. If the word on your card matches the word of the day, you get one of 365 spots on the federal budget. That’s right; you will have your chance of one day being embroiled in controversy after you use your federally granted money to fund your meth lab.

Live Fan Interaction

Finding out what people think about something that’s unfolding in front of their very eyes without giving them even a moment to soak in the information seems to be all the rage nowadays. While watching a presidential debate on CNN, you can see what a small sample group of people you don’t give a shit about think of every syllable that falls out of the mouths of a candidate via constantly shifting line graph of stupid. Why not apply this same dangerous need to always live in the moment and never stop to think about something as a whole by allowing viewers to text or instant message their thoughts on what Congressmen What’s-his-face is currently saying about Appropriations Bill No. blah-blah-blah?

This intense instant gratification can be achieved with the simple inclusion of a live chat box just to the left of the screen. Viewers can sign in to the C-SPAN website and enter the “Live Chattin’” chat room (dropping the “G” means it’s hip with the kids), then they’ll be able to leave such intelligent and enlightening comments such as

“OMG!!1! Appropreations meetings r soooo borning!1 **YAWNZZZZZZZzzzzZZZ***!”

And…

“I’d give Barbara Boxer (D-CA) the D.”

Of course, there would be moderators, but they won’t catch everything because they’ll be quite old and completely out of touch with nearly all forms of emerging technology.

MTV-Style Camera Work

Let’s face it, most of the boringness of C-SPAN can be traced back to its extremely long single camera shots of people just talking and talking and talking. There’s very little on earth more boring than watching uncut footage of a suited, silver haired white dude with piss poor oratory skills give a speech on government subsidies for corndog manufactures that’s only 4 minutes long but feels like an oral description of the entire Lord of the Rings saga. Yes, a good deal of the blame can be placed on the crapulence of the speaker, but that’s never stopped MTV from giving every monosyllabic primitive they come across a solid half-hour of programming. So the question is how does MTV make even the stupidest person at least partially watchable?

An endless barrage of quick cuts and wacky camera angles.

Let’s say you’ve got a congressmen speaking on the floor about how some high powered official is a communist. This scenario is fairly common and it hit the peak of excitement when McCarthy got laughed out of D.C. The only feasible way to add a shot of awesome is by taking the camera off of the tripod and putting it in to the hands of an 8-year-old that’s 10 hours off of his ADHD meds. Get this kid on the floor and just point in a general direction. This point is all he needs in order to get some of the most nauseating shots possible. To motivate the child, just give him a chocolate bar every hour on the hour until he gets diabetes. Then just find another kid that doesn’t need a constant stream of insulin to keep him up and mobile and living. In fact, get about 5 of this kid and just set them loose.

Now that you have this army of soon-to-be suicidal children roaming around with cameras, you’re going to need a sharp director to keep track of the chaos. The best man for the job should be blind. Better yet, he should have as few eyes as possible. Once he’s in the broadcasting booth, just tell him to snap his fingers at least 47 times a minute and that if one of the C-SPAN higher ups detects the same, or a even similar snap pattern from one minute to the next, a member of the blind man’s family will die.

Of course, no members of his family will actually be killed – maybe just his neighbors.