Monday 3 May 2010

BBC Election Night to show on C-SPAN?

In my previous post, Where to watch the UK election on Thursday?, I noted that the proper (BBC1) Election Night special would not be airing on BBC America and that the best bet was C-SPAN, who have broadcast all three of the leaders' debates live. With thanks to both David Hendrix and an anonymous commenter, there is some encouraging news in a Huffington Post article by Martin Lewis, UK Election: Conservatives Poised to give Britain a Good Flocking. The piece of interest is the following:

I just heard from a good pal at C-Span that C-Span will be presenting a feed of BBC TV's election night coverage. The reason this is not showing on the C-Span schedule pages yet is because they have not yet determined which of their three channels (C-Span 1, 2 or 3) will be used for the coverage. As soon as I hear more - I will post it here.
Lewis speculates that the coverage will begin with the British coverage, 10pm (5pm ET) and go through the night. As I mentioned previously, C-SPAN only update their schedules a day in advance so it may be a little before we have confirmation, but it is very good news that we may be able to watch the proper BBC election night coverage.

Update (23.32): confirmed by japascot on Twitter.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Hope you are right, and I really hope they don't stick it on C-SPAN 3, which *no one* gets (including me).

Do post a comment if you hear further detail, please?

(Not an ex-pat, but rather a keen elections geek who thinks the BBC Election Night coverage is a *great* show.)

Mark Goodacre said...

Thanks. Will certainly confirm as soon as I hear more. I am one of the few who actually gets C-SPAN 3, but let's hope that they make it more broadly available by putting it on 1 or 2.

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure that the BBC website will have full coverage (not just to UK users) and will also be commercial free. They have been broadcasting anything election related live, including the standard news programmes and discussion shows.

Mark Goodacre said...

Yes, I think you're right.

Peggy said...

It will be on CSPAN 3, which I am fortunate enough to get. Quotage: "... our coverage will include a simulcast of the BBC Election Results starting at 4:55pm ET on C‑SPAN3"

http://www.c-span.org/Series/Prime-Minister-Questions.aspx

Anonymous said...

Thanks for posting this information. I am trying to organize a viewing party for the elections results at The Queen Vic, the best British pub in Washington, DC. They have had the BBC and ITV stop by in the past to get coverage of American reactions to British events, and one of them seemed interesting in sending a crew over. I wanted to make sure that the US patrons were as well informed as the news crews want us to be about this historic event.

I called C-SPAN this morning (Tuesday) and the nice lady in Viewer Services leaned towards confirming that they will be running a feed of some sort from one of the British networks. But she said to call back Wed evening to confirm.