Local and Independent Programming
The goal here is more localism in our program diet, more local news and information, and a lot less streamed-in homogenization and monotonous nationalized music at the expense of local and regional talent. Homogenized music and entertainment from huge conglomerates constrains creativity, suppresses local talent, and detracts from the great tapestry of our nation’s cultural diversity.

Read the full article here.

… Mr. Yang believes the loss of a terrestrial signal will effectively delegitimize KTRU.

“As a 50,000-watt station that can be heard all across Houston, there’s a sense of responsibility to the community,” he said. “When you lose a terrestrial footprint in Houston — anyone can put out a signal that’s on the Internet — it takes away the legitimacy of what we’re trying to do.”

Despite obvious parallels between KTRU and WRVU, Chris Carroll, director of student media at Vanderbilt Student Communications, draws a stark contrast between the situations at the two universities. At Vanderbilt, he said, “what’s happening, really, is a big public discussion about is this a good idea or not, and there’s no conclusion to that yet.” Rice, he said, made the decision to sell KTRU behind closed doors — without student input.

After a tumultuous summer, groups focused on saving the stations have mobilized at both campuses. Both have Web sites — savektru.org and savewrvu.org — and Facebook pages to gather comments and provide updates.

Read the full article here.

“There’s nothing like KTRU on the air right now,” Yang said. “(National Public Radio) and classical music are both well-served by KUHF’s current format. We think the loss of the independent, eclectic format is a net loss to the community.”

And that Rice violated an agreement to consult with a KTRU advisory board by conducting the initial discussions in secret.

Similarly, the petition says UH may have violated the Open Meetings Act by omitting mention of Rice or KTRU in its public posting regarding the purchase. The agenda referred only to “the purchase of a radio station for use by KUHF.”

Comments sent to the FCC are not yet available on its website. Yang said KTRU has received copies of almost 1,000 comments sent to the commission.

Several were included in Friday’s filing.

“There were lots of voices in support of our station,” Yang said.

“They say Houston doesn’t need more of the same thing. They want our programming.”

Read the full article here.

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.)

Needless to say, this shift toward disconnect is epitomized by the KTRU debacle. The nature of secrecy and lack of communication surrounding this business deal which dealt a severe blow to a major student organization was simply unprecedented. The administration could have, quite frankly, not cared about student desires less than they did during the KTRU sale.

Read the full article here.

The Daily Cougar: “Group of students voices its opposition to KTRU acquisition at Board meeting“

Multiple students consecutively spoke to the straight-faced board members at the Wednesday meeting, and each student expressed a loss of confidence they had in the institution. Many UH students referred to the deal as a “black eye” on the university.

Nick Cooper, Rice alumnus and member of the local award-winning jazz band Free Radicals, told UH Regents they should “be ashamed at the way the situation was handled.”

Cooper said the loss of KTRU would be a monumental blow to local musicians like himself who gain exposure through the student run station.

Reactions have been similar throughout the UH community.

“As a communications student at UH, I am disheartened by our administration’s underhanded dealings,” Vincent Capurso, a volunteer D.J. at KTRU, said. “Is this what we are teaching business majors, deception?”

The Rice Thresher: “Open records requests unveil how KTRU sale was kept under wraps“

In addition to these details regarding the sale’s disclosure, the two open records requests revealed an incongruency between one of Leebron’s points supporting the deal and the timeline of relevant events.

Burn Down Blog: “When did Rice first try to sell KTRU?“

Rice should take the higher ground and release all of its information about the KTRU sale. If the sale is truly justified, then the facts should speak for themselves. Let Rice justify this sale, just as Rice students must justify their arguments in classes. If the university cannot do that, then this course of events will be tainted through Rice’s history as one of its lowest hours, unable to even meet the same standards it holds for its students.

YouTube: “KTRUgate: The Animated Series“

Please contact UH’s Director of Media Relations ASAP if you’d like to speak during the “open forum” part of the UH Board of Regents meeting tomorrow:

Richard Bonnin
713-743-8155
rbonnin@uh.edu

The University of Houston Board of Regents has a quarterly meeting this Wednesday at 1:30 pm. As a public institution, its meetings are free and open to the public.

http://www.uhsa.uh.edu/regents/calendar/

BOARD OF REGENTS MEETING
November 17, 2010, 1:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
University of Houston-Downtown
Special Events Center
Academic Building, 3rd Floor
One Main Street, Houston, TX 77002

Please come to the meeting and show your support for KTRU. The agenda (available here) includes an “Open Forum”. Here is your opportunity to respectfully tell the Regents your opinion of the proposed sale.

Texas Watchdog: “University of Houston practiced deception, cooked up ‘cover story’ as it closed deal to acquire Rice University’s KTRU radio station“

The University of Houston plotted to keep its acquisition of Rice University’s student-run KTRU radio station secret as long as possible — going so far at one point as to encourage lying to Rice students about why an engineering consultant needed access to the station, e-mails obtained by Texas Watchdog show.

“The underlying paper work is being drafted to mislead people or throw the effort off the track of the public,” said Larsen, the public records lawyer.

Huffington Post: “University Of Houston Deceived Students As It Closed Deal To Acquire Rice University’s KTRU“

“The longer we wait (for an agreement) the higher the likelihood of one of the ‘campus constituencies’ causes a problem for Rice, which could disrupt the transaction,” reads an April 5 e-mail to UH officials from an agent at Public Radio Capital

Houston Press: “Texas Watchdog: U Of H Covered Up KTRU Purchase Plans“

Published this morning, Steve Miler’s report cites emails from employees at Public Radio Capital to both U of H officials and the consultants hired by Rice that appear to recommend both universities work together to avoid tipping off KTRU’s staff, the student bodies and the public to the impending sale. One recommends Rice create a “cover story” relating to why an engineer was visiting KTRU to evalute its assets.

Texas Watchdog: “University officials plotted, bickered as KTRU sale to University of Houston finalized“

As the sale of Rice University’s student radio station KTRU to the University of Houston was finalized this summer, public relations teams from the University of Houston and Rice worried over possible leaks of the news and an ensuing “press frenzy.”

The deal didn’t get out for another week, and UH’s effort to keep the $9.9 million sale from the public until the last possible minute succeeded. At one point, an agent of the school encouraged Rice to concoct a “cover story” to keep students from guessing the real reason a consultant needed access to the KTRU station, Texas Watchdog reported Thursday.

The meeting of the finance and administration committee included some testy moments, although it was not covered by any media outlet. … “The vote was not unanimous,” Bonnin wrote to Thrane. “One of our regents opposed the proposal and asked very pointed and probing questions. It’s fortunate that no media attended.”

Houston Chronicle reporter Jeannie Kever had been told of the deal, according to an e-mail to everyone from Bonnin, and had agreed to withhold the information until Aug. 17, the day of the Board of Regents meeting. … We will not distribute the release until after the [UH Board of Regents] vote,” Bonnin instructed.

Houston Press: “Rocks Off Threw Wrench Into U of H & Rice’s Secrecy Plan“

These emails encouraged U of H to concoct a “cover story” to mask its intentions to purchase the largely student-run station, whose staff was kept completely in the dark about the ongoing negotiations.

… it turns out, they already had an agreement with the Houston Chronicle to “embargo” the story until the day of the regents’ vote …

Houston Press: “Rice, UH Officials Made Embargo Agreement With Chronicle On KTRU Story So They Could Have ‘A Quiet Weekend’“

… the Houston Chronicle’s initial reporting on Rice’s controversial sale of KTRU to UH was glowingly positive, at least in part because of a deal where the paper agreed to hold the information until the schools wanted it released.

[Thrane] suggests keeping the lid on internally as much as possible until the board meeting to approve the deal. “That way we don’t risk the KTRU folks going into full roar, and triggering a press frenzy, ahead of your regents’ action.”

Keeping the Public in Public Radio: “‘Because I Said So’“

Such, then, is the final word of the ham-fisted bureaucrats at Rice University in the ongoing public relations disaster that has been the impending sale of KTRU, the student-run 50,000-watt radio station in Houston. Bumbling from one mealy-mouthed rationale to the next …

The Rice Thresher: “Public information request reveals Rice-UH KTRU email correspondence“

Recently the Thresher was given access to a collection of email correspondences pertaining to the sale of KTRU’s transmission tower, broadcasting license and frequency [obtained by] filing an open records request. The information below will update throughout the week, and a succinct overall analysis will appear in next week’s print and web issues.

Burn Down Blog: “Growing opposition to the KTRU sale OR Know Your FCC Commissioners“

The fact that someone with direct experience serving as an FCC commissioner shows that KTRU has a chance. Someone whose job it was to regulate license transfers expressly opposes the KTRU sale.

Where are the blessings of localism, diversity and competition here? I see centralization, not localism; I see uniformity, not diversity; I see monopoly and oligopoly, not competition.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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

HOUSTON, TEX– KTRU’s student management and the members of Friends of KTRU, a group of students, alumni and community members dedicated to stopping the sale of the radio station’s assets, strongly condemn the actions taken by Rice University and University of Houston to conceal the KTRU deal.

“Today’s article in the Texas Watchdog reveals just how desperate Rice and UH were to keep the pending KTRU deal under wraps,” said KTRU Station Manager Joey Yang. “From making up cover stories in order to mislead KTRU staffers, to using false call letters to keep KTRU out of the public record, it seems the administrations of both universities were trying to deceive Rice students and the general public. Their actions demonstrate a questionable commitment to openness and transparency.”

The full article can be found here:
http://www.texaswatchdog.org/2010/11/university-of-houston-practiced-deception-over-Rice-University-KTRU-sale/1289434596.story

Yang urged anyone concerned about the pending KTRU sale to participate in the FCC’s public comment period, which runs until Dec. 2. Information about how to contact the FCC, your local congressperson, and spread the word is located at:
http://savektru.org/help/