Shame the alternative format is no longer in the Bay Area. This definitely shows the core audience for the format has shifted off to streaming platforms and other alternatives (no pun intended).
It's not as much that the audience has shifted as it is two very real things:
First, Alternative Rock has fragmented into pieces too small to justify a format. So a broad Alt format is either limited to very few consensus songs or has to play a bunch of songs they know that a big part of the audience won't like.
Second, the younger demos have switched to non-rock and mostly rhythmic kinds of contemporary music. This decline was first noted and studied by Edison Research in the 90's, well before even the iPod and widely used streaming.
This is not a radio issue... it is one of changing musical tastes and, perhaps, lack of support by the music industry.
I do think there's a good opportunity for a non-commercial alternative/AAA station to pop up in town, much like KEXP in Seattle or KCMP in Minneapolis/St. Paul.
AAA is a 55 and older format, and that is why so few of those exist commercially and the ones in markets like Portland and Denver are now so old leaning that sales are declining despite "good" 12+ numbers.
Alt is an 18-34 and 18-49 format for the most part. And those demos have been moving over the last 25 years towards more rhythmic music.
And, not often mentioned, Alt rock is very narrowly accepted outside the US and Canada and, maybe, the UK and Australia. Other forms of rock, going back to the later 60's, have been wildly successful in much of the rest of the world. For example, in the 80's, out of 21 FMs in Lima, Perú, played English language music, and ten of them were "rock" and not AC or Top 40.
This kind of word rejection of Alt has a very great impact on the mostly foreign owned record industry. They are far less prone to deal with music that can't be internationalized.
This is more than Audacy's ineptitude in selecting and programming formats.
