Brian Lamb

The man who pulled back the curtain on Congress by televising its daily proceedings finally called it quits after 33 years on the job. Effective April 1, C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb will step down as chief executive of the network, relinquishing control to current co-presidents Rob Kennedy and Susan Swain. Lamb’s Washington-based cable operation, which launched in 1979, was the first medium to grant viewers unfiltered access to the work of the House of Representatives. Three decades later, the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network empire includes C-SPAN2, C-SPAN3 and C-SPAN Radio, offering round-the-clock government-affairs coverage (which SNL’s Seth Meyers once joked is mostly “wide shots of empty chairs”). Lamb will remain at the network as executive chairman and will continue to host Q&A, his weekly interview series.