One less alternative on the dial

While driving between the Bay Area and Reno, Nev., it was always nice tuning in to KWOD 106.5.
It was the SACRAMENTO version of Live 105 or KROQ -- a beacon of alternative music amid the country, classic rock and Top 40 sound-a-likes.
Jill and I could also occasionally hear it driving south into eastern California from Lakeview, during our years in Oregon.
I learned this week that station owners ENTERCOM dropped KWOD-FM's alternative format after 18 years. Instead, the station will play 90s music while re-branded "106.5 The Buzz."
"The last few years have been very challenging for KWOD, as it has been for the world of alternative music and the radio stations that play it in general," Program Director Curtiss Johnson stated on the station's Web site. "While we are a radio station, we face the same circumstances as so many other organizations today... the challenge of running a business profitably. We have taken many steps over the last few years to improve things, but, in the end, they have not been enough."
I remember driving north out of the Bay Area across the flat farmland of the CENTRAL VALLEY, twisting a car stereo knob and being surprised to hear DEPECHE MODE. That's my lasting memory of a station gone missing from the radio dial.