This is my blog post on KTRU. It includes a lot of photo from the protest on Sunday. Please feel free to use the text and the pictures any way you like!

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“For me, KTRU would be a tragic loss, and one that I would miss. It has been one of the programmed buttons on my car radio for as long as I have listened to that station, beginning in the late 1970s. And like many Houstonians, part of my musical education has come from that station – music, I should add, that would not get airplay on any other radio station in town. KTRU has served as a springboard for many up-and-coming bands that need a venue to reach the public. Perhaps the most appealing aspect of all this is the station’s complete air of spontaneity – as I have found time and time again, I never know what to expect when I tune it. It is always different, always fresh, and always unexpected – and that is a benchmark for a learning experience. Likewise, the student body that operated the station over the years have crafted their own learning experience in the ways of media and communication.”

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View a clip from of the protest on the KHOU website here >

“It makes me sick that Houston and Rice University would lose the best, most diverse radio station in the area. Because that means Houstonians and Rice students have one less way to discover the rich musical underbelly that is teeming well below the Lady Gaga/Katy Perry surface. Surely discovery has to count for something. Right?”

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“Tears were shed by several speakers before the statue of William Marsh Rice at Sunday afternoon’s KTRU rally. Drawing several hundred supporters, the event featured the words of KTRU djs, Rice University professors and community organizers. The mix of speakers underlined the radio station’s diverse listenership, and shed light on the personal connections people of various backgrounds share with KTRU.”

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Visit the Houston Chronicle website to view photos from the protest today >

“When Rice University alumna Rachel Orosco heard about her college’s plan to sell its student-run radio station, KTRU, to the University of Houston she became so distraught that she jumped on a flight to Houston to protest.”

“Orosco — a former KTRU station manager — was among roughly 200 students, faculty and community members who gathered on the Rice campus Sunday afternoon to protest the $9.5 million sale of the station’s broadcast tower, FM frequency and license.”

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“Student DJ Joey Yang, who helped organize the rally, spoke of Rice’s upcoming 100-year anniversary and the station’s 40-year history as a student-run entity. He said he’d learned that over a year ago Rice began looking for someone to take the station ‘off of their hands,’ to which someone in the audience angrily replied ‘It’s not their station!'”

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“If Leebron didn’t think he could lose this KTRU battle, then why would he try to keep it secret from anyone who would oppose, in potential violation of the Texas Open Meetings Act? If Leebron didn’t think he could lose, then why is Rice yet to file the transfer with the FCC?”

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“[KUHF] is an important part of the community and serves a great need but to expand its broadcasting by silencing KTRU is unconscionable and the fact that my university is allowing this sale to go through under the current circumstances leaves me feeling culpable.”

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“Rice has always produced a certain kind of person– these kinds of people I love and think the world needs more of. I don’t want Rice to become a cookie cutter private university.”

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[T]he subterfuge exhibited in the negotiations for the sale — behind closed doors, before students returned for the fall semester — mark this administration as the latest in a long line of bean counters who know the cost of everything (that matters to them, anyway) and the value of nothing.

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There is nothing wrong with classical music and it does have its place but let’s face it, classical stations are a dime a dozen while high-quality, eclectic, college radio, stations are absolutely not. KTRU is something special and is something well worth defending.

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The biggest problem with internet radio is that people have to already know about you and actively seek you out. I regularly field calls from people who describe themselves as long-time Houstonites who have finally just stumbled upon my show. And perhaps more of a blow, hip-hop probably speaks in general to a younger, mobile crowd who won’t necessarily have streaming internet radio in their cars or phones.

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The students, however, are not happy at all… They’re particularly incensed that this was done in secret, just before the students returned for the fall semester.

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Scroll to the bottom for a list of similar losses to public radio.