Robert Rosencrans, Who Helped Propel C-Span

Robert Rosencrans, a daring cable television industry pioneer who was instrumental in creating C-Span, the unfiltered public affairs network that faithfully covers government proceedings and civic events, in Greenwich (CT). He was 89.

“There probably wouldn’t be a C-Span without him,” Brian Lamb, the network’s founder and executive chairman, said. C-Span, a private, nonprofit, industry-financed service, began as the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network in 1979, at a time when fewer than one in five homes was wired for cable. Today it comprises several television and radio channels and a web presence, offering a variety of gavel-to-gavel coverage of Congress, presidential campaign events and other public affairs programming, including lectures and forums, book reviews, viewer call-in programs and interviews. After Lamb pitched the concept to cable operators, Rosencrans wrote a $25,000 check on the spot and persuaded other industry executives to pony up $450,000 in seed money to start the network. He became C-Span’s founding chairman.

Rosencrans, joined by equally audacious engineers, investors and programmers, perceived that cable’s potential was in exclusive programming, not merely serving viewers in sparsely populated areas beyond the reach of broadcasters.