mikemcguff.com: 91.7 KTRU Rice Radio step closer to becoming UH's KUHC

Hot off the Rice University press release website. This means 91.7 KTRU is one step closer to becoming the University of Houston's KUHC classical station. At least this is being announced to the public:

Rice University and the University of Houston have signed the agreement for UH to purchase the KTRU radio tower, frequency and license from Rice.

"The matter now goes to the Federal Communications Commission for approval, which may take several months," Rice President David Leebron told students, faculty, staff and alumni via e-mail Oct. 13.

The tower will be used by public radio station KUHF as a second station serving the Greater Houston community, with one broadcasting 24-hour news and information and the second station, with call letters KUHC, broadcasting 24-hour classical music and entertainment.

"We will consult with KTRU’s student managers about the timing for turning the tower over to KUHF, but we expect that to occur by the end of the semester or calendar year," Leebron said. "In the meantime, KTRU will continue to deliver its programming on 91.7 and online through www.ktru.org.

"In my conversations with the student managers, although we have disagreed about the sale of the tower and broadcasting rights, I have been encouraged by their commitment to explore ways to make KTRU of even greater value to the Rice community. We are also working with KTRU leadership to explore some alternatives in addition to the online station. We will dedicate some proceeds from the sale to KTRU for improvements now and ongoing support in the future. KTRU has played an important role at Rice, and we expect it will continue to play an important role in campus life in the future."

Leebron noted that Rice is also working with leaders of the Student Association and Graduate Student Association to formulate a process for gaining student input on how to best use proceeds from the sale. Some of the proceeds will go toward the new east servery and to KTRU, but Leebron said no other decisions will be made until the administration has heard from students about their priorities. Funds from the sale will be available when FCC approval is obtained.

"I know the decision to sell the tower was controversial, as was the need to conduct those negotiations confidentially," Leebron said. "This was clearly an exception to our usual process for undertaking major decisions at Rice, and we have emphasized that this was a result of unique aspects of this sale and not a precedent for future decisions. As a whole, members of our community expressed their opinions with great civility and thoughtfulness, and the KTRU leadership and staff were appropriately strong advocates for their viewpoint. We look forward to working with them and others in putting the sale proceeds to work for the benefit of our students and university."