Brownback’s State of the State address not slated to be televised but will be live-streamed

Gov. Sam Brownback’s office says it will provide a live feed of his State of the State address to make up for a Wichita public television station dropping plans to broadcast the speech.

Wichita-based public television station KPTS has broadcast the State of the State for the past decade but was unable to raise the money to cover this year’s broadcast, said Dave McClintock, the station’s interim CEO.

McClintock said the decision was “strictly economic.”

“We’re hopeful that won’t be the case next year,” he said, adding that it costs the nonprofit station about $9,000 to provide the broadcast.

The station had provided the feed used by other stations. Its decision to not broadcast this year’s speech put in doubt whether any TV station would do so. The governor’s office announced a solution Tuesday afternoon: It would provide a live stream of the speech on Kansas.gov, which would be available to other TV and radio stations.

That plan makes the speech “accessible to as many Kansans as possible,” said Eileen Hawley, the governor’s spokeswoman, in an e-mail.

Kansas Public Radio will broadcast the speech; that broadcast can be picked up by other public radio stations.

Brownback’s speech to the Legislature is scheduled to take place on the same night as President Obama’s State of the Union address. In previous years, Brownback had scheduled his speech to take place on a different night.

Brownback’s speech will take place at 5:30 p.m. Jan. 12 in the Statehouse. Obama’s speech before Congress will happen at 8 p.m.

Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, called Brownback’s record abysmal and said the scheduling of the governor’s speech the same night as the president’s was “an intentional effort to avoid any sort of spotlight.”

This story was originally published January 5, 2016 at 1:18 PM with the headline "Brownback’s State of the State address not slated to be televised but will be live-streamed."