“We don’t even say the word ‘rock’ on the radio station — we’re New York’s new alternative,” said Mike Kaplan, the ALT 92.3 program director and format captain for alternative across Entercom, the station’s parent company, in an earlier interview. “I don’t think there’s a big win in using the word rock today,” he added.

“The raw, guitar-rock sound is really — I don’t want to say it’s done, but …” He trailed off. “It’s present, but it’s morphed and mixed with other instrumentation. Does anyone really go to Guitar Center anymore and pick up the guitar?”

The overlapping quagmires currently facing alternative rock radio — how much new music should it play, what should it sound like and who is it for? — are particularly tricky in New York, which has long been led and defined by its rap, Latin and pop stations.

The alternative format, also referred to in the industry as modern rock, grew out of the underground radio of the 1970s, and rode breakout bands like R.E.M., Pixies and the Cure to the Nirvana explosion of the early 1990s, when previously niche acts from punk traditions stormed the mainstream. In the aftermath, through the rap-rock of the new millennium and the dance-pop and Top 40 dominance of the mid-2000s, rock stations that didn’t rely on oldies have been the subject of much hand-wringing regarding their sonic allegiances and commercial prospects.