FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Joey Yang, KTRU Station Manager
Tel: 614.423.9264
Email: joey.yang@gmail.com

WASHINGTON, D.C. December 3, 2010— Friends of KTRU, a group of students, alumni and community members devoted to stopping the assignment of KTRU’s non-commercial (NCE) FM license, today filed an official Petition to Deny with the Federal Communications Commission.

The petition specifically challenges Rice University’s application to assign the station’s license to the University of Houston System (UHS). UHS already operates KUHF, an NPR and classical music station in Houston, and proposes to create a 24-hour classical station on the 91.7 FM frequency, reserving 88.7 FM for NPR programming.

“Rice University and the University of Houston System used underhanded techniques in this attempt to sell KTRU’s FM license, which was student-created and has been maintained by four decades of hard-working student volunteers,” said Joey Yang, KTRU station manager. “With this Petition to Deny, we hope to stop them and return KTRU-FM to its rightful owners: the students.”

The law firm of Paul Hastings drafted the 41-page petition, which describes numerous ways in which the proposed assignment of KTRU’s NCE FM license to UHS is decidedly not in the public interest.

Here is a summary:

• The proposed programming for the new station would significantly decrease community-oriented programming, in contravention of the FCC’s emphasis on broadcast localism
• The proposed assignment would be contrary to the educational purpose of the non-commercial FM license
• Internet transmission of KTRU would be a poor substitute for FM broadcast
• Houston-area non-commercial, educational FM licenses would be overly concentrated in the hands of UHS and non-independent operators
• Questions exist as to the qualifications of UHS holding an additional NCE FM license
• Rice and UHS’s secrecy, deception excluded student and community participation
• Characterization of FM radio license as a “declining asset” and sale at a below market price is harmful to the public interest

In addition to the Petition to Deny, Friends of KTRU spearheaded a campaign to organize public opposition to the license transfer. To date, the group has received more than 1,000 letters protesting the license assignment, more than 5,000 online petition signatures, and innumerable letters to FCC Commissioners and members of Congress.

You can read the full Petition to Deny here. (The file is in Adobe Acrobat format.)