From the website: Why you can't find Tech Ranch on KUT Tech Ranch Testimonials. For fans of public radio--and of Tech Ranch as it appeared on public radio--this is a sad story. Fortunately, the story has a happy ending. The story begins in the late spring of this year. Springtime being the proper breeding ground for all things fresh and promising, Bazzirk gave birth to a fresh and promising idea. We would produce a radio program that would give a voice to the local technology community. The show would be issues-oriented. It would be light in tone. It would be of interest to anybody and everybody who lives a tech-focused life in our tech-crazed town, from the casual web-surfer to the CEO. To have credibility, the show would have to be scrupulously objective. It would be open to all. The primary criterion for stories would be that they be informative and entertaining in subject matter and in delivery. Bazzirk clients would have no more access to exposure on the program than any other entities in the business of technology.

And continuing . . . To carry out this charter, we set up Tech Ranch as an independent business unit of Bazzirk, with an organizational structure that functioned separately from Bazzirk marketing services. We consciously emulated the venerable journalistic model that divides editorial from sales. For the Tech Ranch staffers, this came naturally. Our Tech Ranch producer and our lone staff reporter both have degrees in journalism and solid newspaper experience. Our Tech Ranch executive producer has a background in reporting on radio and television. Someday, we hoped and dreamed that spring, the show might grow into broadcast syndication and be able to carry its own weight as a profit center for our company. In the meantime, it would be a labor of love. We thought public radio, and KUT in particular, would be the perfect vehicle for the show. We invited the management of the station to a meeting to hear our ideas. They loved the idea! They were already planning to introduce a local news segment on the station, and they saw Tech Ranch as an ideal first element of that local coverage. They saw all sorts of advantages for KUT and for The University of Texas in new connections with Austin's flourishing technology community. We happily developed demos and played them for the KUT staff. We incorporated their suggestions into the show. And, at 8:10 in the morning on June 1, 1998, we broadcast the first Tech Ranch program on KUT.

And still more . . . Early response was overwhelmingly--even gushingly--positive. We heard from people at all levels of technology companies of all sizes. We heard from members of the University community. And we heard from the proverbial man and woman on the street. The show was an unqualified hit. KUT's management was delighted. The powers-that-be at The University were delighted. The station began receiving unsolicited inquiries about underwriting opportunities for the show. National exposure on NPR was under discussion. The sky was the limit. Then came a troubling cloud. Inexplicably, KUT management was suddenly bombarded with e-mail attacking the show. It turned out all the mail was coming from two people. Both of them had once worked at Bazzirk, had left, together, in unhappy circumstances, and now worked, together, at a competing advertising agency. The mail threatened complaints to the FCC and to NPR. Why? Because KUT had entered into a nasty, dirty partnership with a card-carrying profit-making business enterprise. Bazzirk, that evil empire, was obviously using Tech Ranch to further its own ends. When KUT did not immediately yank the show from the air in response to these complaints (feedback from listeners was running fifty-to-one positive at this point), the complaintants escalated their attack by bringing in the media. Playing loosely with the truth, they called reporters and blew the whistle on the nasty partnership between public radio and private enterprise. One reporter, or, more accurately, one columnist--the media critic at the Austin American-Statesman--took the bait. This columnist pontificated in print that KUT should do the right thing and separate its good name from that of the high tech marketing firm that was producing its new hit program. Meanwhile, balanced, professional coverage of the situation appeared in the pages of the Austin Business Journal, and various Letters to the Editor were launched by both sides.

But it gets better . . . The critical Statesman column seemed to turn the tables for KUT station management. Showing remarkably little backbone considering the benefits Tech Ranch had brought and was still bringing to the station, KUT made the decision to cancel the show. "Perception" was the only reason offered. Was there any real, FCC-like, legal question? If so, nobody could say what it was. KUT's station manager did talk to his FCC attorney, and was later quoted in the newspaper, by the aforementioned columnist, as saying that there was "no legal issue." The "perception" word was used again in explanation. No matter that no one could demonstrate that the show was in any way biased in favor of Bazzirk clients, or in favor of anyone else, for that matter. No matter that the show was clearly focused on issues and on ways technology affects people's lives, rather than on products for sale. No matter that the show had generated a devoted audience almost overnight (the lifespan of the show on KUT was just three months), and was a clear money-maker for a station that always needs money. No matter that the technology community loved the show and didn't mind saying so. No matter. Despite all this, we have no bone to pick with public radio. Truth to tell, we love it. We tried putting time, talent, money, and energy into making our own contribution to it and things didn't work out. KUT brought our baby to the airwaves, and we're grateful for that. Now we're moving on. End of sad story. And beginning of happy ending. Tech Ranch will soon resurface on a popular commercial station in the Austin market. Watch the Tech Ranch page for details. We are in the process of re-formatting the show for commercial syndication, and have interest from several national syndicators and from individual radio stations. We are also at work on a long-form (two hours or more) version of the program for internet broadcast on a heavily-promoted broadcast web site that will premier this fall. We are particularly excited about the web broadcast, as it will allow us to examine the technology issues that interest us in much greater detail. For those who have followed and supported the show on KUT, we offer our sincere thanks. We invite you to stick with us as we make the transition to commercial stations and to web broadcasting. See you on the radio. (end quote from http://www.bazzirk.com/tech/why.html )

It's very interesting that the reason given was one word (perception). And that it sounds like an unwillingness to say what their meaning was, their contextual meaning was, for that word. Therefore, their worries and fears could not be gone into and discussed. It's very difficult to talk about stuff that difficult to talk about. So people shift into avoidance behavior. Very defensive routines going on there that are so hard to loosen up. Result: injustice. Another result: anti-learning. Even if there is learning, and the delving into the reasoning for the perception, and even if there is a good healthy exchange among those concerned with the issue, it of course can turn out that the show would be dropped. But at least some democracy can occur. Some maturity. Some discourse.