Spin Control

In 1997 a committee was formed to follow the strategic plan and to "realize the fullest possible potential for the station." KTRU already had a committee to determine general programming and operating policies, one created in 1970 when the station went to the FM dial. But this structure was ignored by the administration and superseded by the new committee, perhaps purposefully. KTRU student representatives held a greater percentage of spots on the original committee than they would be granted in the new one. In fact, the new committee included 11 board members, deans, faculty and administrators, but only three students.

The 1997 committee surveyed members of the Rice community and concluded that KTRU could better reflect the entire campus by broadcasting more sports, lectures, music school concerts and conferences. "[U]niversity programming should be gradually expanded to approximately six to 12 hours in a given day," the report recommended, even more for special events. Student committee member and then-station manager Andy Campbell has said that the committee never discussed the six- to 12-hour university-programming goal that somehow got included in the report. He would never have agreed to give up half of KTRU's broadcast day.

Yet another committee was formed to oversee the station and implement the recommendations from 1997. Again, faculty and staff far outnumbered the student members. It was this oversight committee that Rice's athletic department came to in October asking that KTRU double its sports broadcasting this year and expand even more in the years to come.

The station historically has aired selective sports contests, with KTRU DJs themselves calling the games. But the athletic department frowned upon the irreverent nature of these sportscasts, and the practice was phased out in recent years. KTRU volunteers say they would have no problem broadcasting some Rice athletics today -- on their own terms.

But within the KTRU oversight committee, students were in no position to dictate terms. Johnny So says that he and the other two KTRU students on the committee were coerced into an agreement to broadcast three games a week every month except February and March, when they would air four games per week. They also agreed to broadcast all WAC semifinal and final events, pre- and postseason NIT tournaments, NCAA tournaments and College World Series games. So claims that an administrator told him, "If you don't implement these changes, I can see resources being withdrawn from the station until the station atrophies." So decided to play ball with the athletic department, just so KTRU could stay in the game.

KTRU may have made an agreement, but that didn't mean the student volunteers were happy with it. On November 28 two DJs protested the arrangement by playing punk rock songs over the last half of the Rice women's basketball game. As the Lady Owls fought a losing battle against the Arizona Wildcats, the DJs played "We Want the Airwaves" by the Ramones, "No Surrender" by Lickity Split and "I Don't Want to Hear It" by Minor Threat. The DJs thought it was an appropriate act of civil disobedience, a comment on the struggle for control of the station, a protest of the university's power. Administrators thought it was an outrage. Neill Binford, chair of KTRU's oversight committee and associate VP of finance and administration, called So and demanded to know what he planned to do about the troublemakers. So chose to do nothing. "The job of station manager is not to be their yes-man and expunge the political enemies of the administration," he wrote on the KTRU listserv.

This was not the answer administrators wanted to hear. Although the sports-punk simulcast was not an FCC violation, Shepard says that So's lack of action indicated that KTRU DJs were answering to no one. Administrators worried about future FCC violations and even the destruction of the equipment inside the station. Two days later the station was shut down.

President Gillis explained the shutdown in an interview with Thresher editor Brian Stoler. "Am I supervising the broadcasting in a responsible manner if I am told that we're going to keep doing that?" Gillis asked rhetorically. "In this day and age when MIT gets sued for $6 million for allowing something to happen on campus, my responsibility is to the university and its students, and I cannot condone anything that makes it vulnerable."

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Strangely enough, the shutdown was the best thing that could have happened to KTRU. University corporatization might be too subtle a subject to inspire student activism, but it was easy to pick sides after administrators locked students out of their radio station.