"Gavel-to-Gavel Alaska,” the statewide television and Internet web casting service, will be providing full coverage of the upcoming special session of the Alaska Legislature, starting on Thursday, October 18th.
Throughout the session, cameras in the state capitol will televise unedited, start-to-finish coverage of House and Senate floor sessions, key committee hearings, news conferences and other state government activity.
Coinciding with the special session, Gavel to Gavel Alaska is moving into all new digital television facilities at the KTOO building in downtown Juneau. Technicians are finishing up work on a six-month, $1 million upgrade to the control rooms and the capitol building wiring and equipment, expected to be finished just in time for the special session. The project replaces old and obsolete analog television equipment, much of it dating back to the 1980s and 90s. The new facilities will allow KTOO to expand programming via a new Alaska channel called “360 North.”
The television service will be carried by 37 cable systems statewide, including all of the GCI Cable systems, as well as on satellite TV’s Dish Network and live on the Internet at www.ktoo.org/gavel. Gavel to Gavel will also stream live audio of most official meetings in the State Capitol building so that anyone with a computer connected to the Internet will be able to listen to almost any hearing, committee meeting or floor session live as it happens. In addition, every event will be saved in an extensive on-line audio archive and will be available for playback on the Internet.
Gavel to Gavel Alaska is produced by KTOO-TV, the public television station in Juneau. The City and Borough of Juneau provides a major grant to support the coverage. ACS provides the Internet web casting service. GCI Cable and several other cable systems are providing cable channels on 37 cable systems in the state and Dish Network provides distribution to their home satellite customers in Alaska.
In addition to the City and Borough of Juneau, special session sponsors include AT&T Alascom, ConocoPhillips, the Association of Alaska School Boards, the Alaska State Chamber of Commerce, BP, AARP, Public Employees Local 71, Wostmann and Associates and the Alaska Committee.
Viewers can obtain updated daily schedules and access the audio and video streams via the web site, www.ktoo.org/gavel. The e-mail address for Gavel to Gavel Alaska is gavel@ktoo.org.
News directors and editors: An updated list of local channels for each community is on the web at http://www.ktoo.org/gavel/cable.cfm. For telephone interviews about Gavel to Gavel Alaska, call Bill Legere, KTOO-TV at 907-586-1670.
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