A group known as SOAR--Save Our Arts Radio--has taken out a quarter-page ad in the Sunday Longview News-Journal, rallying support to oppose the sale of KTPB at Kilgore College. Prominent members of the arts communnities in Longview and Tyler are listed as figure heads in the campaign and the ad itself points up some salient arguments against the station's sale. But opponents all along have overlooked the fact that the FCC likely won't block a licensee from divesting itself of a frequency if the license holder no longer wishes for whatever reasons--financial or otherwise, to continue its right to broadcast.
The ad urges people contesting the sale to send nine copies of their letters of protest to the FCC by Thursday of this coming week. Critics of the opposition group's action are calling the campaign too little, too late, especially since the comment period opened weeks ago and those against the change over are just now getting around to getting an organized effort moving to call the FCC's attention to opposition of the sale.
KTPB of course for more than a decade has performed a significant service to patrons of the arts, but a better effort probably would be made by people with the needed money and motivation to seek another frequency for arts broafcasting in the East Texas area. The ad pointed out that listeners in East Texas have been receiving "free access to the arts" via KTPB, so it's likely those persons wanting that access are going to discover that it will now come at a price. Kilgore College has grown tired of financing a public service that has been largely funded by the college itself and decreasingly supported by the public.
The ad urges people contesting the sale to send nine copies of their letters of protest to the FCC by Thursday of this coming week. Critics of the opposition group's action are calling the campaign too little, too late, especially since the comment period opened weeks ago and those against the change over are just now getting around to getting an organized effort moving to call the FCC's attention to opposition of the sale.
KTPB of course for more than a decade has performed a significant service to patrons of the arts, but a better effort probably would be made by people with the needed money and motivation to seek another frequency for arts broafcasting in the East Texas area. The ad pointed out that listeners in East Texas have been receiving "free access to the arts" via KTPB, so it's likely those persons wanting that access are going to discover that it will now come at a price. Kilgore College has grown tired of financing a public service that has been largely funded by the college itself and decreasingly supported by the public.