Hansard Broadcasting Services was established on March 11, 1991 to provide live television coverage of all proceedings in the Legislative Chamber. The broadcast signal is distributed via satellite and is available free of charge to all cable providers in the province. As a result, the televised proceedings can be received in nearly every community in the province. In 2005, Hansard was mandated to televise the proceedings of Section A of the Committee of Supply, which meets in the Douglas Fir Room. The debates of "Committee A" are recorded and rebroadcast each evening after the Assembly broadcast.
Webcasting services were introduced in 2003, providing access to the broadcast signal over the internet. In 2005, live streaming of the proceedings of Committee A in the Douglas Fir Room was added. At the same time, webstreaming was extended to include audio webcasts of the public proceedings of parliamentary committees. Live and archived webcasts are available on each committee's website for all public meetings, whether they are held on the Legislative Precinct in Victoria or in any other community that a committee chooses to travel to - from Vancouver to Vernon, Vanderhoof or beyond.
All of these internet services, as well as podcasts of Question Period and more detailed information about Hansard Broadcasting Services, can be found on the Legislative Assembly website.
In November of 1994, all of the official Hansard transcripts became available online free of charge. Previously, the Queen's Printer (now King's Printer) - the provincial organization responsible for publishing official documents - would charge an annual subscription fee to mail out paper copies of Hansard transcripts.
