The Kentucky Lottery announced Tuesday morning that it will is ending the nightly TV broadcast of its drawings. Starting Sept. 16, the drawings will instead be streamed live and archived on the lottery’s website, kylottery.com.
Currently, the Lottery's drawings are produced by M&S Works, a Louisville-based production company. With the move from TV to online, production of the drawings will be done in-house.
The Lottery's drawings are currently carried by six TV stations (WLKY/Me-TV in Louisville, WKYT/CW in Lexington, WDKA in Paducah, WBKO in Bowling Green and WCPO-9.2/9.3 in Cincinnati) as well as WHAS-840 AM in Louisville.
This move does not affect the Mega Millions and Powerball drawings, which will still be broadcast live on WGN America, which is available on cable and satellite across Kentucky.
“When we started our draw show 23 years ago, the internet as we know it didn’t exist,” said Kentucky Lottery president and CEO Arch Gleason. “Newspapers, retailers and the nightly show were the main places where people found winning numbers. Now, more than half of our players – 54% at last count – say they use the Internet to find their winning numbers. This is more than double the amount which find drawing results in the next highest ranked outlet, newspapers at 25%.”
In moving away from TV, the Kentucky Lottery joins lotteries across the United States that have done so in the past. Kentucky's neighbors, Indiana and Tennessee, have shut down their shows completely, and are among 25 states which no longer televise their drawings.
“By making this commitment to the platform most of our players are using to find winning numbers – and not completely shutting down the show as has been the case in other states – we’re keeping the drawings available for viewing in the place where a majority of players look for results,” said Gleason.
Players can receive text messages or emails with winning numbers by signing up for the Kentucky Lottery’s Player’s Fun Club on the website, or subscribe to the lottery’s Twitter feed that automatically distributes winning numbers.
The savings from this move will be substantial, according to Rick Kelley, the lottery's VP of finance. “Our current production costs for the drawing are slightly over a half-million dollars per year,” said Kelley. “By bringing this production in-house, a significant amount of what we were spending (around 95% after start-up costs) can be saved.”
The Lottery's drawings are currently carried by six TV stations (WLKY/Me-TV in Louisville, WKYT/CW in Lexington, WDKA in Paducah, WBKO in Bowling Green and WCPO-9.2/9.3 in Cincinnati) as well as WHAS-840 AM in Louisville.
This move does not affect the Mega Millions and Powerball drawings, which will still be broadcast live on WGN America, which is available on cable and satellite across Kentucky.
“When we started our draw show 23 years ago, the internet as we know it didn’t exist,” said Kentucky Lottery president and CEO Arch Gleason. “Newspapers, retailers and the nightly show were the main places where people found winning numbers. Now, more than half of our players – 54% at last count – say they use the Internet to find their winning numbers. This is more than double the amount which find drawing results in the next highest ranked outlet, newspapers at 25%.”
In moving away from TV, the Kentucky Lottery joins lotteries across the United States that have done so in the past. Kentucky's neighbors, Indiana and Tennessee, have shut down their shows completely, and are among 25 states which no longer televise their drawings.
“By making this commitment to the platform most of our players are using to find winning numbers – and not completely shutting down the show as has been the case in other states – we’re keeping the drawings available for viewing in the place where a majority of players look for results,” said Gleason.
Players can receive text messages or emails with winning numbers by signing up for the Kentucky Lottery’s Player’s Fun Club on the website, or subscribe to the lottery’s Twitter feed that automatically distributes winning numbers.
The savings from this move will be substantial, according to Rick Kelley, the lottery's VP of finance. “Our current production costs for the drawing are slightly over a half-million dollars per year,” said Kelley. “By bringing this production in-house, a significant amount of what we were spending (around 95% after start-up costs) can be saved.”
“Every dollar we save is a dollar that goes to help send students in Kentucky to college,” said Gleason. “The Kentucky Lottery is the sole funding source of the popular KEES scholarship program, and provides a majority of funds for the CAP and KTG college grant programs. When we take an action like this to save funds, that means more money we send to the Commonwealth – and more Kentucky kids get help to pay for their college education.”
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