After 22 years at Audacy Alternative 106.7 KROQ-FM Pasadena/Los Angeles, midday host Nicole Alvarez departed the station at the end of July.
Alvarez joined KROQ in 2003 after brief stints at WPLA Jacksonville and WZTA Miami rising from overnights to nights and then middays during her two decade plus run at the station. She was also heard in afternoons at “104.3 The Shark” WSFS Miami until its flip earlier this month and “Alt 103.7” KVIL Dallas.
Alvarez made her departure public today in a column she wrote for the Hollywood Reporter. She wrote, “Leaving KROQ is the hardest thing I have ever done. But staying would have been a slow death. After being disrespected by an executive known to do those types of things, I was done. So I lit my life on fire for something that matters more than anything, my integrity. This round, I was willing to bet on myself. I am never going to speak ill of KROQ. This isn’t about a station betraying me. It’s a story about what radio has become. About wanting more. About the way business is handled these days. The truth is, I had already outgrown what radio was allowed to be. This was the station that launched iconic musicians and gave a voice to the outcasts and visionaries of Southern California and beyond. Once a tastemaker, a cultural detonator, a lighthouse for the weird and wild, it has now become a spreadsheet. A machine run by research, not instinct. By caretakers who cling to titles, not passion.”
Later in the column, Alvarez continued, “Radio will always matter. In the right hands, it will always matter. To the executives suffocating it, it’s never too late to introduce humanity into the corporate narrative. I challenge you to play the game without selling your souls. Radio is not dying. You’re killing it. Just do better.”
This story first appeared on radioinsight.com