Classical 91.7 KUHA being bought by KSBJ to become NGEN Radio
The battle over the 91.7 KTRU signal that started last August is finally over. The Federal Communications Commission says today that the University of Houston can officially own the signal.
"KUHF and University of Houston officials learned today that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has granted assignment of the 91.7 FM license from Rice University to the UH System," a UH media representative said in a statement. "The contractual close of the purchase is still pending. Upon completion, the university’s plan is for a new full-time classical music station to debut on KUHA 91.7 FM, while KUHF 88.7 FM will offer full-time news and information."
The classical station's previous call letters were reported to be KUHC.
This after protests by Rice Radio supporters and a petition to deny the license ownership transfer by group Friends of KTRU was denied by the FCC. In the FCC report, the group's specific objections were:
The proposed assignment of licenses is not in the public interest and that Rice and UHS have otherwise violated the Commission’s rules and state law. Specifically, Petitioners allege that: (1) The assignment will involve a format change that contradicts the Commission’s policies in favor of broadcast localism; (2) the assignment undermines the educational purpose of an NCE station and UHS’ proposed programming description is inadequate; (3) the assignment will result in a concentration of NCE FM licenses in the hands of UHS; (4) the UHS public file is missing a required ownership report for one of its existing NCE broadcast stations; (5) the negotiations between UHS and Rice violated the Texas Open Meetings Act; and (6) the agreed purchase price is deflated and harms the public interest.
A post today on the official KTRU Rice Radio site written after the FCC announcement says "We are currently still broadcasting on 91.7fm, 91.5fm on rice u campus, on HD radio at kpft 90.1 HD-2, and streaming online. We will provide more information about how this decision will affect ktru’s programming as soon as it becomes available."
UPDATE FEBRUARY 24, 2016
Classical 91.7 KUHA being bought by KSBJ to become NGEN Radio
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