<p>UH to buy KTRU</p>
<p>This deal is expected to generate 9.5 million USD for the University.</p>
<p>There appears to be significant opposition to this from the student body. Which is interesting to me, because no one seems to listen to them.</p>
<p>Looks like a disturbing the 'status quo' protest.</p>
<p>Thoughts?</p>
<p>The opposition is built around the idea that the tower and license were donated to KTRU. While Rice and KTRU are legally the same entity, it’s really, really crappy of the administration to sell an asset that functionally belongs to a student organization without even consulting with them. Most of the KTRU staff, let alone the student body, found out about this not from Rice administration, but from a rumor posted to a Houston Press blog. While you may or may not agree with the decision itself, the way in which it was handled sets an unfortunate precedent for trust between the administration and student organizations. It’s like if an alum had made a significant donation specifically to Wiess College, and Rice decided to spend it on something else entirely without talking to the Wiess leadership.</p>
<p>There is merit to that point, however, it all folds into the umbrella of hierarchy. If I was to gift something to a someone, their parents (depending on age) still get to vet the gift.</p>
<p>This is the Universities property. It would have been nice to give a heads up to the KTRU members, I agree, but the eventual decision is Leebrons and Rice’s. Independent entities have not been able to ascertain the listenership of KTRU as it is so low. From that respect, 9.5 million USD is a fairly exceptional sum to get for something, that is in many people’s eyes- not worth much.</p>
<p>The worth of KTRU itself is dependent on its fans and members of the community. It will still exist. Members can still seek it out and listen at will. It will just require some effort. To me its the equivalence of me seeking our Mexican coke (cane sugar). Takes some effort, but since I like it, I go the extra mile. If no one else likes the same, then it makes no fiscal sense to have it available everywhere. </p>
<p>In that way there is no such thing as ‘Wiess Leadership’. They Wiess leadership is a group of students who manage their small budget and plan parties and the likes. In my opinion, they are definitely not qualified to handle large donations and long term projects. Most of this ‘leadership’ will be gone within the year, so the bad results of their lack of planning will not affect them. It will affect the university at large, and as a result I would prefer if the administration handled it.</p>
<p>This applies to all the colleges in my mind. There is a limit to what they can and should control, and I think they are at that limit now. I wish people would trust the administration a little more. Rice didn’t rise slightly in US News by poor decision making. AND we are #1 for quality of life. SO they are doing something right</p>
<p>Also the frequency and transmitter they are selling along with the FCC license is easily worth over 25 million dollars all together. So for UH this is a total steal. This isn’t about the money, Rice is liquidating this asset to basically just get rid of it.</p>
<p>I dont see a buyer willing to pay that much. It may be a steal, but for us its 15,000 lightbulbs worth of power wasted. </p>
<p>To me, it is a liquidation to get SOME value out of nothing</p>
<p>In any event, this has been an issue that has caused the student body to rally together for something. We were all notified officially of the deal by email yesterday, and student response was massive, by the “club” carnival last night, KTRU had erected a huge sign in the RMC and all of the free bumper stickers were changed to “save” KTRU. They received 500 signatures for a petition to save KTRU within the first few hours. It’s been pretty crazy. In my travels across campus for O-Week I’ve seen stickers on everything from campus maps to Willie’s Statue. I think we’ll ultimately be unsuccessful, but it’s been a nice experience for us to have.</p>
<p>the sad part is, most of those people probably never listened to KTRU. I know plenty of people who are opposing it because they view this as an administrative beat down. I would fight my battles when needed, not over something that I dont use.</p>
<p>This reminds me of Prop 8. People want gay marriage banned even though it has NO affect on their lives…</p>
<p>It’s more a matter of principle, that the administration did not discuss this at all with the student body.</p>
<p>Rice has long managed its assets extraordinarily well, and usually beats out their peers on endowment performance and other financial matters. This radio frequency is not a commercial frequency and as such would never garner more than what Rice ultimately negotiated. Rice is prudent and does thorough due diligence regarding finances and would never sell an asset for 62% less than its true worth. It would have obtained at least 3 independent valuations before determining market value. Rice students and alumni are far too intelligent to throw out these crazy statements. Do your research! Do your homework. Know what you are talking about. KTRU continues. Student DJs and student programming continue. Make the online KTRU extraordinary. Be innovative. Start an internet streaming phenomenon. YouTube sure has–it’s even launched highly successful careers from 3-minute segments. Show how brilliant Rice students are. Grab onto the new and quit clutching onto the old. Houston is a city of 4.5 million, and KTRU reached about 20,000 on the radio (less than 1/2 of 1 percent). Its global reach, that so many clamor about, is from its online streaming, not from a 50,000 watt station which many inside the loop had trouble receiving since the tower is in Humble. And truthfully, in a city of 4.5 million, 500 signers doesn’t even register on any type of scale. It is .0001%. Let the proceeds be used to benefit the whole student body, and make KTRU online the prototype that others want to emulate.</p>
<p>
The only people on campus are the freshman, who probably only found out about ktru earlier this week, and a few advisors/coordinators + some of the athletes. That hardly represents the student body, the freshmen probably only care because they want to meet people. Its a vocal minority that is in an uproar about ktru. No one cares. End of story.</p>
<p>
I would disagree. Regardless of how you view the decision, most people are pretty united in the idea that the process was a ****show by the administration. Leebron himself admits that they wanted to have an open discussion but they were advised against it for reasons that he’s not willing to disclose.</p>
<p>If you really want to use the gay marriage analogy, then you’d have to modify it. Proposition 8 was a public process in that people debated it and voted for it. To fit into this analogy, the California government would have internally discussed gay marriage and banned it without any input from what the people want. While people may be split in their opinion of gay marriage, not following the correct (and in this hypothetical case, legal) procedure would be a valid grounds for argument. As it happens, since the Rice admin owns all the rights and titles involved they don’t have to go through a particular process. It’s just very snarky and completely contradictory to their Call 2 Conversation, which is why it has affected more than just the standard KTRU listeners.</p>
<p>If Rice had created open discussion before going through with the secret sale:</p>
<p>(1) All the people who don’t listen to KTRU but are miffed about the process (such as me) would not have been complaining
(2) KTRU would in effect have been given an ultimatum to improve or have their station be bought out
(3) Many of the justifications the administration has suggested would be addressed and discussed, and in some cases, shown to be flimsy</p>
<p>The administration completely deserves all the flak it is getting right now. They pulled a complete lowblow by making this whole process secretive. I’m sure UH is not extremely thrilled about the situation either, since it seems that the Rice admin kind of duped them into thinking no one would really care.</p>
<p>The prop 8 analogy was discussing the mentality of people, not the physical process in which the proposition was passed.</p>
<p>Why are you complaining? This does not affect your life as you said. Then who cares what the administration did? </p>
<p>And as I have said before. The administration is selling the tower. NOT KTRU. There is a big difference in that. KTRU seems to be acting like they are being shut down to garner as much sympathy as they can. Thats just as low. Secrecy on one side, false advertising on the other.</p>
<p>Seriously - “Save KTRU”. What do you think of when you hear that?</p>
<p>@phade</p>
<p>It would appear that I forgot to mention that I’m a freshman, and I actually said in my post that we found out this week. As I said myself, this has been a bonding experience that I felt would be unsuccessful, so I’m actually confused about what you’re trying to refute.</p>
<p>I think phade and you were saying the same thing.</p>
<p>I, for one, am looking forward to having a nice radio station where I can always listen to classical music. This is the best thing that can happen to radio in Houston</p>
<p>
The only reason that flies is because you believe it is morally correct that people have freedom of choice of love. If, for example, the state of Texas decided ban all animal shelters and mandated the euthanization of all stray dogs on finding them, would you not raise your eyebrows at the very least? It wouldn’t personally affect you in the least.</p>
<p>Furthermore, why don’t you address the points I bring up instead of dismissing them just because I’m an alum?</p>
<p>
Once you graduate you will realize that the university you attend is connected to you long after you finished taking classes. For one, you’re going to be bombarded with requests to donate year-after-year.</p>
<p>Secondly, as I have said before, when something is wrong, it doesn’t matter who calls it out as being wrong. By and large people have agreed, regardless of what side of the debate they are on, regarding KTRU, that the process followed by the administration was in poor taste. To use an extreme metaphor, take the example of slavery. If slavery existed today would you be okay with it? I mean, it wouldn’t be affecting you.</p>
<p>
There have been more than enough arguments being made describing why having a tower is a backbone to KTRU’s operations. KTRU is essentially being shut down to anyone in a car, which is where 90% of people listen to radio, anyway. I cannot believe you possibly think that KTRU’s campaign is on par with how the administration screwed them out of their tower and license.</p>
<p>By the way, it appears that the tower wasn’t even purchased by Rice–it was a donation. If students hadn’t innovated 40 years ago, there would be no tower today and Rice would still be in this financial hole. The very least the administration could have done is notified the community before the news hit the media.</p>
<p>
This would have been totally impossible without the sale of the KTRU tower, because there are no internet radio stations…</p>
<p>History shows that a classical radio station doesn’t have longevity in the Houston music scene.</p>
<p>I’m only a Freshman, but it seems that the protest about KTRU and the tower sale are mainly from a very vocal, very small minority of students on campus. There was a rally at Willie’s the other day, and it didn’t look like many people showed up. Sure, the way the administration went about selling the tower was shady, but it’s 9.5 million dollars. That money is supposedly being used to build our new servery at Lovett. Most people I talked to seemed pretty apathetic about it all.</p>
<p>^ Yes. Most alums I know do not really care either. The “hugely successful protest” churned out 200 odd people. That is like 3% of Rice and essentially 0% of Houston at large.</p>
<p>The problem is, anything the administration does - people complain. First the food sucks, then the construction is a problem and now the source of money is an issue.</p>
<p>Lovett just got a 12 million dollar HVAC renovation. The money has to come from somewhere right?</p>
<p>
If I recall, that was during O-week, when non-freshmen who are not involved with O-week are not allowed back on campus.</p>
<p>
People at Rice are apathetic about everything. Reports suggest that the value of the radio transmission equipment and license could have been valued at upwards of $15m and many accounts (especially from industry) suggest that Rice sold it for cheap.</p>
<p>Apart from that, when you’re an organization handling so much money (as Rice is), you have budgets for everything. You don’t just have one large pool of money that everything gets paid from. Dhruv, you should know this since you’ve been pretty active in several different clubs at Rice. The HVAC renovation needs to be paid from the same budget that it was approved from (the buildings budget or whatever–I’m not intimate with the details of it all).</p>
<p>If you spend too much money, especially in the middle of a recession, then you obviously have to cutback. The administration could have delayed the construction of the servery–it’s not as if there’s ever a time at Rice when a new building isn’t being built.</p>
<p>And Dhruv, since you’re obsessed with numbers, here are some for you:</p>
<p>Rice’s endowment was $3.6bn in early 2009 ([Rice</a> changes budget - News](<a href=“http://media.www.ricethresher.org/media/storage/paper1290/news/2009/02/06/News/Rice-Changes.Budget-3615546.shtml]Rice”>http://media.www.ricethresher.org/media/storage/paper1290/news/2009/02/06/News/Rice-Changes.Budget-3615546.shtml))
The $9.5mn gained from this sale comprises 0.03% of Rice’s endowment.
Based on the 2009 budget, this sale relieves 2% of their budgeted costs.
In 2008, Rice received $42m in donor gifts ([Rice</a> endowment decreases $60 million - News](<a href=“http://media.www.ricethresher.org/media/storage/paper1290/news/2008/09/26/News/Rice-Endowment.Decreases.60.Million-3453734.shtml]Rice”>http://media.www.ricethresher.org/media/storage/paper1290/news/2008/09/26/News/Rice-Endowment.Decreases.60.Million-3453734.shtml))
In 2004, McKinsey reported that the Rice football program was losing $10m a year ([An</a> Open Letter to Rice University President David Leebron NONALIGNMENT PACT](<a href=“http://www.nonalignmentpact.com/2010/08/an-open-letter-to-rice-university-president-david-leebron.html]An”>http://www.nonalignmentpact.com/2010/08/an-open-letter-to-rice-university-president-david-leebron.html))</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Rice has not published any numbers as to how much operating the KTRU station cost them. Why? Because they have decided to do all of this in secret. If the administration put forth a strong argument, most alumni who have been complaining wouldn’t have been. Those who are currently supporting KTRU would have a clearer picture of how much money is going down the drain and they would have modified programming/leased out airtime to help the situation.</p>
<p>Basically, if the administration had worked this through the same open process that they proffered through the V2C and C2C, they would have come to the same conclusion in all likelihood (that KTRU was an “underutilized asset”) but they would have done so while demonstrating to the community why that was so. Instead, they’ve done everything in secret without any accountability, so it’s hardly surprising that people are ****ed off.</p>