Rice University, you are dead to me.
First, read the rumor. Next, read the news story. Read how Rice is violating its own supposed vision. Join the Facebook group. Save KTRU!
We’ve heard a similar tune before. Will there be a similar reaction this time by the students and the community, and will it matter? I don’t want to believe there’s no hope, but it’s hard to feel any right now.
There are no words. So much of my identity was tied up in KTRU for so long, I feel as though I’m floating above my body, watching as a thug I thought was my friend is about to stab me to death. For 9.5 million dollars. Money which they apparently need a committee to figure out how to spend. I know, how about use it to buy a visionary radio station, a unique cultural institution created and run by your own students, broadening receptive minds for miles around in every direction? One broadcasting to anyone with a car radio, anyone riding in a taxi, anyone with a boombox. One whose unpredictable and challenging programming gives unmeasurable benefits reaching far into the future, opening the minds of kids stuck in the suburbs, making everyone’s life a little more magical, a little more beautiful. One which shows that the strange and the wonderful are possible even in a redneck oil-ruled cockroach-infested swamp like Houston. Even in a place where any trace of history or character seems to invite demolition rather than appreciation. Miracles are possible, and KTRU was proof.
Well, Rice, you have managed to perform a miracle in reverse. Congratulations on your conquest. You have finally shown your true self, and your heart is apparently run through with the cold blood of a killer. Those looking for a recipe how to eviscerate the soul of a university and of a community need look no further. I mourn for both.
UPDATE: KTRU Emergency meeting at Sammy’s in the RMC (Rice Memorial Center) at 7PM tonight [Tuesday 8/17]. FOX, ABC, and CBS will be there, so look sharp and behave. The public is welcome.
Rice – you suck!!!
damn, i was hoping the HP article was just completely misinformed. i wonder if we can go back to the pirate radio days of students broadcasting from their dorm rooms… or will it just be one more online station… sigh. that royally sucks. fuck rice. i always knew that place was a dump. i’d wax nostalgic, but i won’t. did i say fuck rice already?
Say it again, brother. Not only am I angry that they are trying to sell ktru, I’m dumbfounded at the completely duplicitous way they are doing it.
ok, fuck rice. really ktru is one of maybe like 5 things that make that university bearable.
This is the most emotional I’ve ever seen the Ghost. At least Rice gave us this. Thank you.
My experience with KTRU was pretty limited in the past decade but it did seem that it was slowly getting shittier, more pre-recorded stuff etc.
Also Rice, where perhaps a majority of my long-term friends and many of my family attended (and most of these people aside), is incredibly unimaginative. The administration was never really into the radio and have always only been interested in it as a campus vehicle. The station just got a loooong lucky break. And now, the reality that has always been there smacks us in the face.
Thanks for letting it out here anyway Ghost. Appreciated this post.
From the Rice President’s (David Leebron) email to the Rice community on the subject:
“As much as I prefer to consult widely and involve all stakeholders in important decisions, this sale required months of complicated and, by necessity, confidential negotiations. My management team and I approached those discussions always with the best interests of our students, faculty and alumni and the future of our university as our highest priorities.”
In other words, “I did it on the sly to try to keep everyone from making a stink, but obviously it leaked too early to put the proper spin on it.”
He also threw in some pablum about KTRU still being available as an Internet station, and made the rather lame point that it wasn’t even registering on the Arbitron ratings. Because we all know that every college radio station should strive for high Arbitron ratings.
One sad part about this is that it is just confirmation of what everyone has known for a while; which is that radio is pretty much dead as a medium for music. Ghost says, “…broadcasting to anyone with a car radio, anyone riding in a taxi, anyone with a boombox”. And yes, that’s true, and maybe I am overplaying the “radio is dead” angle. It was comforting to know that KTRU was there, even if I didn’t listen to it that often or felt it had declined in quality over the years. In the end, as Ghost suggests, there is something very democratic about radio, because everyone can get to it with really simple technology. Is this why radio frequencies are so valuable, even though no one seems to be able to make money off them any more (think of the bazillion format changes in Houston FM radio over the last few years, all apparently to no avail despite draconian cost cutting measures). Is it because the idea of allowing true community control over radio frequency real estate is just too radical? Is it in the interests of the Powers That Be to starve community radio of oxygen, regardless of whether they even want to use the frequency or not? In the end, all I know is that whatever gets put in place of KTRU’s frequency, ostensibly a “public” radio station, will be completely harmless. KTRU may have fallen short of the ideal of a community radio station on many fronts, but one thing it wasn’t — until now — was harmless.
made the rather lame point that it wasn’t even registering on the Arbitron ratings.
This part really stuck out for me because it appears to be an outright lie. I don’t doubt that ktru’s audience is small, but he has no idea what the Arbitron ratings are. They don’t just give those away; you have to buy them and ktru never bought them. When you do buy them, you also have to add an ID tag to your signal so Arbitron’s meters can log that you were listening. Obviously there was no ID tag on ktru’s signal, so it could never be logged. I know this because I was an Arbitron household until a couple months ago. And even though I knew ktru wouldn’t register, I would still often only listen to ktru in the car because I knew the meter was listening and I didn’t want to accidentally inflate the ratings of a crappy classic rock station.
So yeah, that’s a lie. As, I imagine, is the rest of his tapdancing “I really have your interest at heart even though I didn’t actually consult you to find out what your interests are” spiel.
I also heard a rumor that one reason UH wanted the KTRU tower is because the licensed radio operator they had on staff for FCC compliance died a while back, and that if they took over an existing tower they wouldn’t have to re-license. Not sure if that’s true or not, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
I’m right there with you — was never on KTRU staff, but its existence meant a lot to me, was emblematic of the ways in which Rice was special. And now Rice has chosen to kill it off. Which just feels like the last step in the process of Rice destroying everything that made it special, and ceasing to be special to me.
Besides hanging out with friends, my best memories and experiences at Rice surrounded KTRU, the fun times I had being a DJ, and the cool venues I got to go to by being exposed to the music (like the Axiom/Catal Hayuk). [After KTRU, there was Valhalla and Rice basketball games, and they've practically killed that team over the past 20 years]
KTRU is great community outreach, bringing people into Rice and letting Rice students escape the claustrophobic confines of “the hedges” and a strangely bland residential college system that basically did nothing more than split students into 10 randomly sampled groups living in different buildings.
In the early 90s, Rice seemed like a place lacking a bit of creativity with the exception of KTRU, the architecture department, the lawn of Valhalla on Friday afternoons, and a few other lucky places.
Let’s hope we can get in front of this before it gathers strength. $9.5M compared to an endowment of $3B ain’t much.
This made me very sad. I had many years as a DJ and even asst music direction, etc. But knowing universities, I’d advise folks not to get too worked up over the “president’s message.” This is fed to him by some PR types, and the decision was probably made a long, long time ago. These types of contracts take a long time to put together. Maybe even the universities board voted the final decision. Even when I was there, 20 years ago, I was always thinking we should, like, interview more profs or some such. Did I ever do that? No way, just the bands, just the music.
Question: why is the bit about internet radio bogus, or “pablum?” I listen to a lot of internet radio.
I just replied to another thread about the issue of it still being on the internet, so I will repeat it here:
An internet site is one among thousands. You have to know its address and go there. You have to already have an open mind and knowledge about music to know about it and want to go there. It’s broadcasting to the choir, as it were.
Whereas with a real radio station, the entire community has the opportunity to accidentally get turned on to goodness. It’s a giant piece of public art that engages the community at all times, not a piece of sculpture stuck somewhere in an obscure museum with an admission fee.
Thanks, Ghost, for the repeat. I appreciate that perspective. I could quibble with the analogy and preach the good gospel of how good stations spread online, to audiences way beyond Katy, TX, but this is not the place or time. Since I’ve moved away from the city, I’m probably just too removed from the visceral pain right now.
The biggest problem with being internet only is that as the audience decreases, student interest in the station will gradually wane to the point where it doesn’t even resemble a radio station anymore.
I wrote my letter to the admins at Rice. Hope it helps. This is just unacceptable. It’s not like they bought the transmitter to begin with. A nearby (on the dial) Christian station bought that tower for them, so they wouldn’t step on the tiny little student station with their own powerful tower. Rice is pretty much just stealing the students’ hard work and good fortune.
Close, it was a classical station that bought the tower.
[...] recently, Arbitron hasn’t been tracking the station to begin with. See Justin’s comment over here for more on [...]
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