Campus station music switch has some upset

Wednesday, July 1, 1998 | 9:24 a.m.

Refugees from UNLV's former Rock Avenue campus radio show plan in August to pump up the volume of their protest by taking it on the road to Elko and making a case for the alternative rock program's return.

The Board of Regents, which holds the FCC license for KUNV-FM, has scheduled an Aug. 6 and 7 meeting in the Northern Nevada town 428 miles away from Las Vegas. Included on the regents' agenda will be a discussion about the UNLV station's abrupt switch to a mostly jazz format days after spring classes ended in May at the university.

"We're hoping to fill up a bus," said Donald Hickey, a former Rock Avenue disc jockey and UNLV alumnus. "We have support from students, nonstudents, former students, faculty, lawyers. You name it. We're hoping the gray hairs balance out the green hairs at the meeting and we come back with some changes."

The group of devotees, calling itself Rock Avenue Alliance, is not just fighting for punk rock and heavy metal. It is fighting for the return of polka and Spanish-language rock, which also were cut from the KUNV lineup by university administrators pursuing what they call a stronger, more focused identity for the noncommercial station.

Station manager Don Fuller dismissed the critics and their protests.

"I don't think this dialogue is going to change a thing," Fuller said. "Things are looking good right now for KUNV."

Rock Avenue Alliance will ask the Board of Regents to nullify a December 1997 agreement in which student government leaders cut off funding to KUNV and otherwise surrendered control of the station to university administrators. The group argues that only the FCC licensee - the Board of Regents - can make changes in the way KUNV is governed.

John Gallagher, the director of the UNLV Foundation who now is in charge of KUNV, decided months ago to adopt a jazz format after consulting Fuller.

Before the May change, KUNV was a hodgepodge station that played jazz part time, Gallagher said. Students were apathetic toward KUNV, he added.

UNLV's radio turmoil has not gone unnoticed by at least two university regents.

Regent Nancy Price said she is puzzled by the UNLV Foundation director's involvement in KUNV's affairs.

Regent Shelley Berkley, who was among 1,300 people attending a Rock Avenue Alliance protest concert on June 20, said, "I would like to see a more eclectic selection of music and more of a variety of programming returned to KUNV."

Rock Avenue was one of few places in Las Vegas radio where listeners could hear the work of local musicians.