Wisconsin’s version of C-SPAN officially came offline on Monday, almost a month after the nonprofit public affairs network announced it was in desperate need of funding.
WisconsinEye traditionally broadcasts and livestreams coverage of legislative hearings and sessions at the State Capitol.
Last month, the nonprofit said a lack of funding would force the network to stop providing coverage and take its archive of more than 30,000 hours of footage offline by Dec. 15. At that time, WisEye said programming would resume for one year when it received $887,000 in donations, or enough to cover its operational budget.
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On Monday, WisconsinEye’s archive was not accessible on its website. The nonprofit posted a statement that said the website is “unavailable” and attributed the funding challenges to “extreme competition and a complete collapse in private funding.”
Without “consistent annual funding,” the statement says state residents, policymakers and news organizations will “lose the only reliable and proven source of unfiltered State Capitol news and state government proceedings.”
WisEye President Jon Henkes told WPR last month that he asked the Legislature and governor to remove a matching provision for roughly $10 million in state funding for the network that was included in the most recent state budget.
To receive that money, the organization would need to raise $10 million for its endowment fund by June 2026 or the money would be given back to the state.
“We can’t be raising money for endowment money right now, when we’re having difficulty raising money just to keep the lights on,” Henkes told WPR last month.
WisconsinEye is the country’s only independent state capitol broadcast network.
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