Fresh Listen: Alternative’s Up-Trend

Every time the Nielsen PPM monthlies come back, Radioinsight publisher Lance Venta and I text about whether there’s enough to hang a story on. Like Triple-A, covered a lot int these pages recently, there’s been at least one or two Alt success stories each month. Three days into the September results, there are already five.

• Audacy’s KROQ Los Angeles was up 3.4-4.3 for its best topline number since 2004. In addition, Sr. VP/Programming Kevin Weatherly notes that the station’s Klein & Ally “just hit a historic high for an English-speaking morning show in Los Angeles”
• iHeart’s KTBZ (94.5 The Buzz) Houston up 5.6-6.6
• iHeart’s WWDC (DC101) Washington up 5.3-5.9
• iHeart’s KTCL Denver, a station that has often flourished despite the format’s fluctuations elsewhere, now second in the market, 5.0-6.4
• Broadway’s KXRK (X96) Salt Lake City, up 6.2-6.5 for second.

Normally, a story on an upswing in Alternative would hinge on the available current product. Venta came back from a March trip to Los Angeles feeling that something “was bubbling up, with new core artists developing,” including Sombr, Royel Otis, Noah Kahan, Tame Impala, and more. At a format that remains gold-driven, most ROR readers point elsewhere.

More than any other format, this week’s Alternative stories bear out broadcasters’ overarching belief that personality will be radio’s calling card when songs are so easily streamed elsewhere. Connoisseur’s Kevin Begley was one of several programmers to cite the “common theme [of] big morning shows and personalities that connect. Elliot in D.C., L.A. with Woody on [rival Alt 98.7] and Klein & Ally, and the Rod Ryan Show on KTBZ.”

Connoisseur Sr. VP/programming Keith Dakin agrees. “The most successful [stations have] big morning shows, good signals, long-lasting brand, and [are] embracing all eras of gold.”

(We took a Fresh Listen this week to KROQ, KTCL, and another ongoing success story, CFEX [X92.9] Calgary. We’ll focus on mornings at KROQ, The Buzz, DC101, X96’s Mornings from Hell, and more in an upcoming Part II.)

In addition to personality, the heavy presence of late-’90s and early 2000s titles on streaming platforms seems to be legitimizing gold-based Alternative radio, not making it irrelevant. For a while, being gold-based felt inimical to the format mission. But with “Mr. Brightside” at No. 9 on Spotify on Monday, followed by Radiohead, Mazzy Star, Foo Fighters, Cranberries, Nirvana, Linkin Park, and more, the songs that Alt radio made famous are actually supplying currency for all ages.

The ’90s/’00s focus also reaches the generations most tied to broadcasting. “I think if you’re listening to the radio in 2026, you’re a fan of radio and alt rock fans have a warm nostalgia for listening to FM radio,” says CFOX Vancouver’s Jeremy Baker. “And alt-rock radio might be one of the last [bastions of] personality radio.”

Alternative hasn’t quite leaned into being “the next Classic Rock.” Ever since the ’00s success of stations such as XETRA-FM (91X) San Diego and WRFF Philadelphia, the model is more often playing just enough currents to make a statement. But while a Classic Rock station has to work to make “Mr. Brightside” fit, it’s a defining record for Alternative stations.

There is also a place where Alternative radio and Spotify meet on current music that is easier for the format to finesse than it was five years ago. Audacy’s early-’20s stations, including KROQ, provoked the format community by being “too pop” and too driven by “TikTok Alt,” particularly when they played music with Hip-Hop elements.

There’s less dissent now over Dominic Fike or Steve Lacy on the format. There are more mainstream streaming hits from Temper City or Dexter and the Moonrocks. There is also the rise of Kahan and the ratification of Tame Impala as a real multi-format star, and not just one of many “quirky pop acts” being incubated by Alternative.

Because taking advantage of any upswing in new product is still a function of 2-4 currents an hour, Alternative’s success isn’t quite the same as what’s happening at Triple-A. That format is more aggressively leaning into “music discovery” in its positioning and has a few great stories of its own every month. (August also saw WRNR Annapolis, Md., go 0.7-1.1 in nearby Baltimore despite a signal heard mostly in one suburban county.)

How Triple-A and Alternative play the available new music seems to depend largely on the market landscape. But it often feels as if Triple-A is targeting the audience that came to the format for R.E.M. and New Order, sat through grunge, and finally gave up at nu-metal. Alternative has the listeners drawn by Nirvana and Stone Temple Pilots who then learned to like the White Stripes and Killers as the format shifted back to “true.alt.”

Even during programmer Kevin Weatherly’s previous run, KROQ seemed to draw from the ’90s and the early-to-mid-’00s equally. When heard this week, KROQ was playing four currents an hour (slightly more than the last time we checked in). Its full weight was behind Fontaines D.C. — the station was sending listeners to see them locally and qualifying winners for a trip to see the band in Ireland. Also, the band’s “Tongue” was the new song spotlighted as the 4:20 “Catch of the Day.”

Because Weatherly was at Spotify between KROQ stints, he undoubtedly “gained some helpful insight about music-listening habits that many in terrestrial radio would love to know about,” says format (and Audacy) veteran Scott Lowe. In addition, Weatherly has been able to get the band back together. When he returned to KROQ in 2022, both Ryder and middayer Sluggo were still at rival KLOS. Those changes, and restoring the station’s well-establishing imaging and stationality have given a “compounding effect of consistency,” Weatherly says. 

Ryder and co-host Megan Holliday’s topic this hour was “embarrassing ways you’ve hurt yourself.” (The prompt was an earlier news story about a woman suing the bar where she had been thrown not from a mechanical bull but a similar, more graphic variant.) Ryder had the best story — riding his brother’s minibike without permission and not noticing a chain blocking his way. Here’s KROQ at noon, October 5:

• Killers, “Mr. Brightside”
• Bad Omens, “The Death of Peace of Mind” — KROQ had just done a “Block-tober” weekend in which the acts you would expect (Nirvana, the Cure) were joined by Bad Omens, the Paradox, and Sombr, including his cover of “Fade Into You.”
• Dominic Fike, “Babydoll”
• Green Day, “When I Come Around”
• Fontaines D.C., “Tongue”
• 3 Doors Down, “Kryptonite”
• Joyce Manor, “I Used to Go to This Bar”
• Guns N’ Roses, “Sweet Child O’ Mine”
• Jimmy Eat World, “The Middle”
• Evanescence, “Who Will You Follow”
• Bush, “Glycerine”
• Offspring, “The Kids Aren’t Alright”
• Temper City, “Self Aware”

KTCL is up this month, but as iHeart Denver regional Sr. VP/programming Jojo Turnbeaugh notes, the station has been one of Alternative’s most consistent for years under PD Nerf. “It’s more than the music, it’s a lifestyle that has the listeners feeling like they are on the inside,” he writes. 

Because KTCL held steady for so long, it feels like there is still a greater presence of late-’10s titles than at some other Alternative outlets, as well as songs not heard everywhere that it has cultivated over the years. The station is currently giving away Gorillaz tickets, in addition to iHeart’s $1,000 giveaway. A promo talked about all the toilet paper you could buy with that money; middayer Smitty suggested that you could go see Temper City anywhere in concert to see if they had depth beyond their two radio songs.

Here’s KTCL at 10:50 a.m., October 6:

• Tame Impala, “Loser”
• Jimmy Eat World, “The Middle”
• Beastie Boys, “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party)”
• Yellowcard, “Ocean Avenue”
• Temper City, “Self Aware”
• Blur, “Song 2”
• Of Monsters and Men, “Mountain Sound”
• Edgehill, “Love to Go” — with a new music sweeper promoting KTCL’s “Music Nerds” panel
• Good Neighbours, “Home”
• 4 Non Blondes, “What’s Up” — with a throwback stager
• Linkin Park, “Crawling”
• Naked and Famous, “Young Blood”
• Soundgarden, “Black Hole Sun”
• Almost Monday, “No More Regrets”
• Weezer, “Island in the Sun” — the effective beginning of KTCL’s 12 Noon throwbacks
• Rooney, “When Did Your Heart Go Missing”

Like KTCL, and many of its Canadian Alternative radio counterparts, Harvard’s X92.9 Calgary is another station that outperformed the U.S. format for years. Canadian radio ratings aren’t public, but X92.9 has remained successful even with the launch of Corus’s gold-based CFGQ (The Edge). Since its launch, X92.9 has leaned even more into its heritage and being locally owned. “Started in an RV, and now we’re here,” declares one Drake-inspired :00 ID.

X92.9’s heritage includes its ongoing “One Weekend Only” two-day concert in nearby Banff. Winners get not only tickets but also hotel accommodation. Listeners have 92 seconds to call in after hearing their name announced. On Tuesday, both the morning show and middayer Sam Phelps got instant winners. Here’s X92.9 just before 11 a.m., October 6:

• Cage the Elephant, “Come a Little Closer”
• Mumford & Sons, “Caroline”
• Metric, “Help, I’m Alive” (Canadian)
• Weezer, “Buddy Holly”
• Valley, “Vending Machine” (Canadian)
• Cake, “Short Skirt/Long Jacket” 
• Hotel Mira, “Look Alive” (Canadian)
• No Doubt, “Just a Girl”
• Almost Monday, “No More Regrets”
• Strokes, “Last Night”
• Billy Talent, “Try Honestly” — In Canada, there’s a 10” reissue of “Honestly” on green vinyl coming, which, Phelps says, will probably be the thing that prompts him to line up for Record Store Day
• Nirvana, “All Apologies”
• Boy Golden, “Suffer” (Canadian — an Alternative No. 1 last year that was not the American radio single because of the line “I want a new president”; he’s part of the station show lineup)
• Sam Roberts, “Don’t Walk Away Eileen” (Canadian, great Petty-esque rocker and one of two simultaneous hits that helped launch Roberts’s career 25 years ago)