Popular Rice radio station returning to airwaves

Rice graduate and demonstrator Matthew Wettergreen said his work for KTRU was as important to him as his course work. Rice graduate and demonstrator Matthew Wettergreen said his work for KTRU was as important to him as his course work. Photo: Nick De La Torre, Chronicle Photo: Nick De La Torre, Chronicle Image 1 of / 14 Caption Close Popular Rice radio station returning to airwaves 1 / 14 Back to Gallery

Rice University's popular student-run radio station, relegated to the Internet when the university sold it in 2010, is returning to the airwaves.

The Federal Communications Commission on Monday approved the construction of a low-power FM broadcast station at Rice, signaling a return of the station that long highlighted local artists and other musicians rarely heard on the radio.

Yellow and black KTRU stickers are still plastered in bars, coffeeshops and elsewhere around town, a reminder of the love for the station that was embraced beyond the hedges of Rice campus by listeners looking left of the dial.

Students voiced outrage in 2010, when Rice officials announced their intention to sell the station's broadcast tower, FM frequency and license to the University of Houston for $9.5 million.

"KTRU is making its return to the FM airwaves!" station manager Sal Tijerina wrote in an email to station supporters. "By the end of this year, you can expect to tune into KTRU through an FM radio."

The signal will cover about a five mile radius around Rice, Tijerina wrote.

The station is to be broadcast on 96.1 FM, the former home of KDOL, a country radio station that also broadcasts on 105.5 FM.

Hundreds protested the 2010 sale, one of the most controversial moves of President David Leebron's decade at the university. Money from the sale, however, will fund the station's return to FM, said John Hutchinson, Rice's dean of undergraduates. Hutchinson said $1 million of the $9.5 million Rice received in the sale went toward an endowment to support programming at the student-run station. The money will be "well more than sufficient to pay" for the new station, he said.

"We are extremely excited that KTRU will be back on the FM airwaves, that our students will be broadcasting in the same way that goes back to KTRU's roots as a student run FM radio station serving the Rice community," Hutchinson said.

Students had always planned a return to the airwaves, but "it was always kind of a longshot in our minds," said Joey Yang, who was station manager in 2010 and 2011 during the sale of the station.

"It was always a goal of ours to get back on FM, in part because it is how a lot of people consume new music still," Yang said. "A lot of people have really stuck by us, even though we've gone online...and become less accessible to a lot of people."

The station became popular broadcasting Houston and Texas artists, from lo-fi cult favorite Jandek to rapper Fat Tony, as well as musicians from around the world who don't get much radio play elsewhere, Yang said.

"It's always been a home for the kind of music you wouldn't find anywhere else," Yang said. "We're fortunate to have the support of our community. We're really happy to be able to bring all that back to them."