The Houston Press, which has largely owned this story, reports from today’s rally to save KTRU.
Early this afternoon, protesters met at Valhalla, Rice’s on-campus pub, to make signs and t-shirts for the protest before marching as a group to the statue of William Marsh Rice in near triple-digit heat. The timing of the protest and the weather no doubt kept some people away, but the event was still 100-plus strong, with people lining the perimeter of the quad where trees provided shade.
Event organizers also set up tents, handed out cold water and gave away noisemakers to the protesters. Tables held “Save KTRU” stickers, petitions and poster-making supplies.
Even before the event started, one “KTRUvian” climbed atop the Willy statue to speak. “If we don’t take a stand now, nothing will ever change,” he said. “I invite you to create a little chaos.” He then had to be asked to climb down by the rally’s organizers, who had a tight schedule of speakers to get through.
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!”
Yang said the University had adopted a new slogan for it’s anniversary “Unconventional Wisdom”.
“KTRU embodies what a Rice University education is supposed to be about.”
The Chron has some photos; they also opined about the sale.
Another UH rationale for the purchase was to increase the capacity of KUHF to produce quality local programming. In the past, critics have judged both KUHF’s classical music programs and local news and public affairs programming mediocre at best.
Simply adding another broadcast station at UH won’t solve that problem. It’s going to take strong leadership and talent, something that doesn’t automatically come with a new broadcasting tower and frequency. If the sale goes through, the ultimate justification for the expenditure must be a sharp upgrade in the quality, rather than the quantity, of programming.
Recent history suggests that’s not going to happen. I’m rooting for that outcome, too, but I can’t say I’ll be surprised to be disappointed.
I guess the question I have at this point is, how exactly do the Save KTRU folks hope to affect the final outcome? Both boards of regents have voted to go ahead with the sale. There’s a 30-day public comment period, after which the FCC must give its approval, but what are the odds that it won’t? More to the point, what are the conditions under which they won’t? (Yeah, there’s the Open Meetings Act issue, but 1) that’s a question for the Attorney General, not the FCC, and 2) far as I know, nobody has asked the Attorney General to investigate that yet.) I don’t see what leverage exists for those who oppose the sale. The Burn Down Blog suggests Rice President David Leebron is prepared for the possibility of losing the fight over KTRU, but he doesn’t suggest how Leebron might lose it. I admire the passion of the KTRU supporters, but I don’t know what their plan is. How exactly are they going to achieve the result they want? Help me out here, because I don’t see it.
UPDATE: More photos from the rally here.
UPDATE: And here’s the Chron story of the rally.
Your link about the Open Meetings Act had some suggestions at the end of the piece about how the deal might be derailed, even besides the lack of compliance with the Open Meetings Act. It would help if some legal pressure was brought to bear.
If nothing else, delay delay delay.
kudos to the chron (a place i rarely give kudos to) for kind of telling it like it is over at the public radio station at my u/h alma mater. their programming both in news and in music is extremely mediocre. Moreover, this mediocrity extends into the public tv station over there as well (i mean how many more lawrence welk reruns and antique road show episodes can a public tv community bear?). i spend a good bit of time working in other us cities of similar size to ours, and to say the public radio (and tv) airwaves in these other areas put ours to shame is, in truth, being way too kind. our public media is pretty much crap. i’m glad the chron had the chutzpah to say so. and buying a bigger tower and creating more news time is not likely to change the matter.
I have been told by an inside source ( prety reliable ) that it’s a done deal. 🙁
Isn’t there also that most sticky of all issues: THE MONEY??? If I’m not mistaken, didn’t the UH Board say that no taxpayer funds would be used for the purchase and that they would solicit donations to buy the station.
When will that fundraiding begin, and why should Rice turn over the station before the money hits their account? They need to hit up a lot of wealthy Exxon executives before $9.5M can be raised. Or will the taxpayers and the UH tuition payers actually be subsidizing this purchase?
The only grounds on which the FCC could deny the sale is if it is determined that the sale would not serve the community of interest. I don’t have the FCC documents in front of me, so that wording is not exact.
The likelihood of that outcome is as improbable as “serv[ing] the community of interest” is vague. Historically, the FCC has approved all legal transfers and does not consider format choice when making its decisions. That said, I think KTRU has a better chance than most (slim as it may be). There will need to be substantial, factual evidence that the sale will negatively yet significantly impact the public in a way not offset by the supposed benefits of KUHC.
I am not a lawyer. I think the outlook is grim. But if any case can win on those grounds, it’s KTRU or bust.