Brian Lamb admits it. C-SPAN isn’t always sexy.

“We are boring some days, primarily because we are real life,” the network’s founder and CEO said. “And real life isn’t a kidnapped baby every day and hype.”

Twenty-three years after the network started, C-SPAN still provides the same basic service to viewers  nonstop coverage of government meetings, hearings and speeches.

Lamb will discuss the network’s evolution and his program, “Booknotes,” at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in Woodruff Auditorium at the Kansas Union. It’s the inaugural speech of the Dole Institute of Politics.

C-SPAN is an anomaly in a cable news world dominated by bottom lines. The network is private but nonprofit, generating its operating revenue through licensing with cable services.

Lamb, 60, said TV coverage following Sept. 11 proved the focus on profits.

“Before Sept. 11, it was how many

shark attacks are in the United States,” he said. “After, when it all settled down, it’s how many kidnapped babies there are. I just find it totally uninteresting. We have a serious economic problem in the United States. You wouldn’t know it by watching daily TV coverage.”

C-SPAN has expanded from one network to three since 1979. It also offers a digital radio service.

Richard Norton Smith, director of the Dole Institute of Politics, has known Lamb since 1991, when Smith was interviewed for “Booknotes” about his biography of George Washington. Smith, who has visited every U.S. president’s grave, inspired Lamb to do the same  plus visit every vice president’s grave.

Smith said Lamb’s values have guided C-SPAN since the beginning.

“He’s something of a revolutionary,” Smith added. “At a time when there were three networks that pretty much called the shots and three network anchormen dictated the news, he had the idea you could practice genuine electronic democracy. And that meant giving people as many options for information as possible, unfiltered through any real or imagined bias.”

In addition to his duties as the network’s CEO, Lamb interviews authors for his series “Booknotes.” He’s read nearly 700 books since the show’s inception in 1989.

Lamb said he saw parallels between the mission of C-SPAN and the mission of the Dole Institute of Politics. Both focus on public service.

Lamb said having more politicians such as Bob Dole would make C-SPAN more lively.

“The worst thing that happened to Bob Dole was when he started being handled by others,” he said. “He’s got a great sense of humor. He’s best being himself, and he’s best by himself.”

Lamb said he expects C-SPAN to continue expanding. But the content, he said, will never change.

“Probably more than any other television network in the country, we’re doing the same thing we did 25 years ago,” he said. “We haven’t changed our mission at all.”