New rock music alienates more people than older rock music. Rock is the only format where that's the case. Country stations are playing as much as 30% new music and their ratings are spectacular. Rock stations could never do that.
Lone Star is playing more old music, and they get better numbers. So that's not the problem.
Lone Star is a tried and true classic rock station, and they're playing the older side of KEGL better than KEGL is, just like KVIL is playing the 90's-00's side of KEGL better than KEGL Is. KEGL is incompetently programmed.
As far as your other thesis goes - it's correct and incorrect at the same time. Pure heritage-style Active Rock stations are struggling, yes. But there's like this subformat forming on both Alternative and Active that is able to include new music and also generate strong ratings and cume. I call it "Modern Rock", and from analyzing the playlists of these stations I've more or less figured out what formula these stations follow, and KVIL follows this formula, albeit to a lighter extent than most of its peers.
The currents "Modern Rock" stations play tend to be new music by classic "divorced dad rock" bands, alternative metal, folk-rock, post-punk revival/indie rock, punk rock, and alternative rock. It seems to be the magic formula for currents as many of these stations can get away with 3-4 currents in daypart and 4-7 currents at night, which is completely unheard of for either traditional Alternative or Active Rock stations right now. The ones on the Active panel lean more towards "divorced dad rock" and alternative metal, while the Alternative stations lean towards the other subgenres I mentioned. It feels like an "anything goes" style of rock format that excludes modern post-grunge (from the Active Rock side) and indie pop (from the Alternative side). It also makes battles for #1 on both formats interesting and difficult because both formats have a decently-sized slate of music that these "Modern Rock" stations won't touch.
As far as golds, these "Modern Rock" stations focus heavily on 90's and 00's crossovers between the formats. Active Rock panelists that use the formula sometimes sneak in a heavy classic rock song (WIYY will drop in a Def Leppard song for example), while Alternative stations will usually insert the likes of Gorillaz or Modest Mouse. Some 2010's songs, also usually crossovers between the formats, do get onto the playlists, however.
Those types of Alternative and Active Rock stations that subscribe to this formula are doing well. They're doing the best of either Alternative or Active Rock in general. It's going to be hard to knock KVIL out because KVIL is following the "Modern Rock" formula for golds and currents on its playlist right now. It's also going to struggle to knock Lone Star off because Lone Star has the older side of KEGL's playlist locked in. KEGL is stuck in an uncomfortable limbo, not fresh enough to give KVIL a challenge but not playing enough classic treasures to give Lone Star a fight.
