The University of San Francisco abruptly shut the doors of its radio station, KUSF, today and announced that the station is moving to an online-only format, effective immediately. According to several online reports, campus security was called to forcibly remove people from the station.
In a statement on its website, the university “has reached an agreement to assign the FCC license for radio frequency 90.3 FM to Classical Public Radio Network, which is launching a non-commercial classical music station in the Bay Area. CPRN is owned by University of Southern California.
“The call letters KUSF were not sold, and the KUSF logo and all music inventory will remain USF property. All KUSF staff will be offered similar positions at KUSF.org,” the statement reads.
Until today, the station had been on the air for 34 years. At the time of this article’s publication, the only information on the site was a message reading: “Please check back soon for an important announcement regarding KUSF.”
“When I came in [this morning] they’d just shut things off,” Miranda Morris, the station’s Marketing and Advertising Coordinator, told San Francisco’s Bay Guardian. “They proceeded to have facility management change the locks, and I was asked to go home for the day.”
Of the sale, one station volunteer, who did not give their name, told SF Weekly, “It’s a huge surprise. Now university students have lost their voice.”
Station volunteers and DJs told the Weekly that they’d been told the station would be relocating to a new space on campus, but they’d heard nothing about a sale.
The move to online-only distribution will dramatically increase the station’s audience, the University said in its statement. as it was previously limited to just 100 online listeners at a time.