An organization located near the
Purdue University campus in
West Lafayette,
Indiana.
The purpose of the organization is to record and archive every hour of 2 of the 3 C-SPAN channels. Yes, there are 3.
The channel is recorded 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including holidays. The recording is done on 2 hour Super VHS tapes. There are a total of 8 machines recording, where 4 are recording at the same time. On top of the the 4 primary set of tapes, there are 4 secondary tapes being recorded, should a primary deck fail to record. The 2 primary/secondary recording decks for each network record sequentially ever 2 hours. Example: The 1st Primary recorder records for 2 hours and 1 hour 58 minutes into that, the 2nd primary recorder begins to record, so the 2 overlap. The same thing goes for the secondary recorder.
The C-SPAN Archives have been active since 1987. Every hour of C-SPAN network 1 and 2 is archived. Customers can purchase individual shows that air on either network through the C-SPAN website. There is also a lot of merchandise that can be purchased (such as Books, Mugs, T-Shirts and the like..).