Radio character Nicole Alvarez is leaving KROQ-FM (106.7) behind, after greater than 20 years of service and alleged tensions with the station’s government group.
Alvarez confirmed her departure from the station on Wednesday with a publish on Instagram and a farewell letter revealed by the Hollywood Reporter. She spoke about her exit weeks after delivering her ultimate broadcast on July 30. She joined the KROQ group in September 2003 and was an on-air character for weekday programming.
“I by no means knew how it will finish. I simply knew that when it did, I must be the one to jot down the ultimate chapter,” Alvarez wrote for THR.
Alvarez mentioned she didn’t intend for the late July broadcast to be her final, writing it was a second “that was emotional, frenzied, and irreversible.” She added she made the abrupt exit after a “heated change” together with her boss. Although she didn’t share additional details about that dialog, Alvarez underlined that her departure is rooted in “one thing a lot bigger.”
“Leaving KROQ is the toughest factor I’ve ever finished,” Alvarez mentioned. The station makes a speciality of various rock and has lengthy been a platform for notable acts together with Nirvana, U2 and Depeche Mode, as Alvarez notes in her letter. Throughout her tenure, Alvarez has additionally platformed teams together with Linkin Park, Muse, the Smashing Pumpkins and Mumford & Sons.
She added: “Staying would have been a sluggish demise. After being disrespected by an government recognized to do these kind of issues, I used to be finished.”
Alvarez, who mentioned she would “by no means communicate in poor health” of her longtime station, didn’t write any extra of the alleged disrespect. A spokesperson for Audacy, which owns KROQ and several other different stations throughout Southern California, didn’t remark to The Instances.
For Alvarez, her departure from KROQ was extra about “what radio has develop into” and “the best way enterprise is dealt with as of late.” Alvarez resigned after refusing a suggestion for a contract extension, The Instances has realized.
She lamented an alleged shift within the station’s position within the music group through the years, writing that “it has now develop into a spreadsheet” and that its “caretakers” are extra motivated by skilled milestones, and “not ardour.” Alvarez emphasised her loyalty to KROQ and mirrored on her time informing listeners about main information occasions and the music that hit the airwaves.
As she strikes, Alvarez wrote that the station has an opportunity to return to its roots.
“KROQ nonetheless has an opportunity to recollect who it’s, what made it ‘world well-known.’ To take dangers once more. To matter,” she added. “However it’s going to require braveness, not cowardice. Ardour, not company approval.”
In her letter, Alvarez thanked these concerned in her tenure, starting from her “holy trinity” of colleagues (KROQ alumni Kevin Weatherly, Lisa Worden and Gene Sandbloom), to listeners and artists.
“Radio will at all times matter. In the best arms, it’s going to at all times matter,” she wrote.
Alvarez additionally supplied a stern however hopeful message to the executives she accuses of “suffocating” radio: “It’s by no means too late to introduce humanity into the company narrative. I problem you to play the sport with out promoting your souls.”
On Instagram, Alvarez mentioned she has been ready for a second to pursue a brand new chapter and the shift in her radio duties “didn’t really feel proper.” She mentioned that her devotion to music will stay, even together with her KROQ days behind her.
“Now, with all my vitality and all my ardour, I can spend one other lifetime championing it in new and larger methods,” she advised her followers.
