The Rice Thresher, Vol. 88, No. 9, Ed. 1 Friday, October 13, 2000 Page: 8 of 24
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SSRMfil
THE RICE THRESHER NEWS FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2000
I
i
DJs question educational nature of sports
VIANNA DAVILA/THRESHER
How quickly we forget
Hanszen College senior Laila Hlass examines her 1999-2000 Campanile
at the Coffeehouse Tuesday, the first day the books were distributed.
KTRU, from Page 1
chair of the KTRU advisory com-
mittee, said. "I look at the whole
university and everything we do is
somewhat educational. We've em-
braced athletics, it's part of us, and
from a general standpoint, it's part
of this educational institution's ac-
tivities, and we need to appreciate
that."
Station Manager Johnny So said
broadcasting athletics on KTRU in-
terferes with their specialty shows,
which generally happen between 7
and 9 p.m. "A lot of them fall on
prime-time slots which, unfortu-
nately, are when most of our spe-
cialty shows are," So said.
"And those are the shows that
typically have the largest listenership
and the highest listener loyalty. And
our fear is that if we have these
games come on and then [the spe-
cialty shows are] on there one week,
and then they're not, and the next
week they're there, we're going to
lose a lot of listeners because they
can't figure it out.
"And 1 don't know that that
really weighs that heavily with the
administrators on the committee,"
So said.
Binford said that "it is a difficult
thing to answer" who will ultimately
make the decision regarding KTRU's
athletic programming but that the
advisory committee makes recom-
mendations to Vice President for
Student Affairs Zenaido Camacho.
7 look at KTRU as a
tremendous resource
that could really be
utilized to a much
greater extent to the
betterment of the whole
Rice community.'
— Bobby May
Athletic Director
The advisory committee in-
cludes Binford; Wiess College Resi-
dent Associate and Electrical Engi-
neering Professor Bill Wilson; Dean
of Continuing Studies Mary
Mclntire, who chaired the 1997
president's committee; and mem-
bers of KTRU's staff, including So
and Smith.
However, neither So nor Smith
seemed clear about what the
committee's role or responsibility
is. "It's really hard to say what real
power we have at all on the commit-
tee," So said.
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Binford and May said they could
not estimate student demand for the
broadcast of athletic events.
"I don't have a good feel for
that," Binford said. "I suspect
there'd be a pretty good interest,
particularly in games that are away.
There's probably as much or more
interest from alums and others who
follow baseball in the Houston com-
munity."
Since KTRU is a noncommercial,
educational station, it doesn't col-
lect statistics about its listenership,
So said. Commercial radio stations
have Arbitron ratings that enable
them to gauge the value of their
advertising space.
However, So said he does not
think athletic events would draw
more listeners than the specialty
shows normally broadcast during
prime time, which he said is compa-
rable to the 8,000 to 9,000 listeners a
men's basketball game usually gar-
ners on a commercial radio station.
"It's not like you're increasing
listenership in any way, you're just
shifting it," he said.
Women's basketball games will
generally occur on Fridays and Sun-
days, with the most common time
slot for games being Friday at 7
p.m. The KTRU show during that
time slot is "The Mutant Hardcore
Power Hour" hosted by two DJs
from outside of the Rice commu-
nity.
KTRU Social Director Abi Cohen,
who is in her fourth year of DJing for
the radio station, said she is con-
cerned about how well suited the
station is for sports broadcast.
"It's a waste of an FM signal to
broadcast sports, which is talk, talk,
talk," Cohen, a Hanszen College se-
nior, said. "It's better suited to AM,
which is a cheaper medium. FM is
almost exclusively, in general, for
music. ... A bat hitting a ball in FM
doesn't sound any better than a bat
hitting a ball in AM."
So said he is worried that allow-
ing an increased amount of athletics
on the air will encourage more ath-
letics broadcasts on the station in
the future.
"Part of the problem is that if you
give them a little, they keep asking
for more and more and more," So
said. "It's a little frustrating to think
of that possibility."
A memo that Assistant Athletic
Director for Marketing Michael
Pede sent to May, dated Tuesday,
confirmed this possibility. The
memo says that before this year.
AM stations KPRC and KB ME
broadcast Rice football games and
men's basketball games.
However, a merger between
KRPC, KTRH and KBME was final-
ized Aug. 29. These stations have
contracts with the Astros, Rockets,
Comets, Thunderbears and Texas
A&M football, and so the chances
that Rice will have a contract with
these stations in the future are slim,
the memo states.
"At this point, barring some un-
foreseen events, we should not need
to have men's basketball on KTRU
this season, but next season is a real
possibility," the memo stated.
The Athletic Department cur-
rently pays between $50,000 and
$60,000 to broadcast games, but that
cost is offset by advertising during
the games, May said. He said the
Athletic Department wouljJ be will-
ing to compensate KI'RU for increas-
ing airtime for athletics.
"I certainly am open to helping
any way we can, if it's some dollar
amount or it's some help with equip-
ment that would help make their
operation better and also improve
our broadcast and other broadcasts
that they might have," May said.
"We want it to be a win-win situation.
We're not trying to get something
for nothing."
May said the department will
continue to try to find commercial
stations to air athletic events. "We
just think that it may not work out in
the future, and we may see a situa-
tion where only football is able to
get on a commercial station," he
said.
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Stoler, Brian. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 88, No. 9, Ed. 1 Friday, October 13, 2000, newspaper, October 13, 2000; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443149/m1/8/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.