He is the founder, executive chairman, and the now-retired CEO of C-SPAN, an American cable network that provides coverage of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate as well as other public affairs events.

Prior to launching C-SPAN in 1979, Lamb held various communication roles including that of a telecommunications policy staffer for the White House and as the Washington bureau chief for Cablevision magazine.

[5] His job at the radio station gave him the opportunity to interview musicians including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole, Count Basie, and The Kingston Trio while he was still in high school.

[1][6][7] During his junior year at the college in 1961, he coordinated a television program titled Dance Date that was similar to Dick Clark's ABC series, American Bandstand.

Lamb took up this role midway through the Vietnam War and, in addition to handling queries from radio and television networks,[8] he attended press briefings with Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.

[9] In July 1967, following riots in Detroit, Lamb was sent there tasked with providing recordings of news conferences of Governor George W. Romney of Michigan for the White House Situation Room.

He later recalled, "For five years after I got out of the Navy and went back part of the time to Indiana, the only thing I was known to have ever done in my life was to escort Mrs. Johnson down the aisle.

[4] In December 1967, following his Navy service, Lamb's interest in politics led him to interview for the role of personal aide to Richard Nixon during his campaign for the 1968 presidential election, but, instead, he chose to return to Indiana.

[11][12] Afterwards, Lamb became an assistant for media and congressional relations to Clay T. Whitehead, then the director of the White House Office of Telecommunications Policy.

[12][14] While editing The Media Report, he also became the Washington bureau chief of trade magazine Cablevision[15][16] for four years,[17] covering telecommunications issues.

[19] In 1977, Lamb submitted a proposal to cable television executives for a nonprofit channel that would broadcast official proceedings of Congress.

[4] In March 2012, Lamb announced his plan to step down as CEO, handing control over to Rob Kennedy and Susan Swain.

"[3] In his 35 years at C-SPAN, Lamb has conducted thousands of interviews,[2] including 801 editions of Booknotes, a weekly program he hosted focusing on nonfiction books.

[17] Over the course of the program, Lamb's interviewees included authors, politicians, and world leaders including George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev, Richard Nixon, Colin Powell, Christopher Hitchens and Margaret Thatcher.

[17][36][37] After Booknotes ended, Lamb began hosting a new program titled Q&A, featuring interviews with figures from politics, technology, education, and media, as well as authors.

Lamb opposed the "must-carry" provisions of the Cable Television Protection and Competition Act of 1992, which he later stated, had led to 10 million Americans losing or experiencing reduced access to C-SPAN.

[6] In November 2007, Lamb received the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the highest civilian award in the United States—from then President George W. Bush for his work at C-SPAN;[24][57] the White House announcement stated that Lamb had received the award for his "dedication to a transparent political system and to the free flow of ideas".