Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted before Beasley Media Group announced the sale of X107.5 to Educational Media Foundation (EMF). Carlota and the entire X107.5 team had no idea the station was being sold when we spoke. Now that the deal is public, her conviction about staying true to alternative radio becomes even more meaningful.
There’s a radio station in Las Vegas that has been telling the same story for 30 years. Nobody is buying the safe version anymore. KXTE X107.5 — Extreme Radio — is having a reckoning. What does it mean to actually be alternative in 2026? If you’re wondering why that matters, sit down with Carlota. She’s the station’s Program Director and midday anchor. She’ll tell you exactly why the format got lost. More importantly, she’ll explain how she’s bringing it back.
Carlota has been doing middays in Vegas since 1998. That’s 28 years of spinning records and running her mouth in the desert. She worked Comp 92.3 for 18 years. She bounced through a couple of other gigs. Finally, she came back to Extreme in 2023. That tenure matters significantly. She remembers what alternative actually was. She remembers when it meant something dangerous.
“This station is celebrating its Dirty 30 this year,” she tells me. “It’s been through the ringer. It’s a highly loved and revered brand, but we gave our listeners quite the ride.”
The Origins of Edge
The ride started in the mid-90s when alternative was a format that scared people. Rage Against the Machine, Corn, Limp Bizkit — all the bands that sent parents into committee meetings. Mike Stern built something real here. But then — like it always does — the business got nervous. People got comfortable. The edge got rounded off. Subsequently, one by one, alternative stations started playing it safe.
“A lot of alternative radio stations now — and maybe it works for them — but I don’t know that it’s going to work for us,” Carlota says. “Is too AAA, too Hot AC. That’s not what I feel alternative is.”
So she is making a bet. She is going back to what built the format. That means REM, Missing Persons, The Smiths, Depeche Mode, The Cure, and Psychedelic Furs. But she is also bringing it into 2026 by mixing in current music. The current music must actually have texture and edge. Not safe pop that happens to be indie, but music with genuine alternative DNA. For instance, consider Imagine Dragons, Dirty Heads, Pierce the Veil, and Temper Pedals.
“I look for the stuff that has edge and texture,” she says. “I avoid the safe-sounding, pop, Hot AC-sounding AAA stuff.”
That is not a small decision in radio. That is a bet against the tide.
Finding Validation
She got validation from an unlikely place. Todd Newcomb, who does the same thing at a rock station in Salt Lake, wrote about staying true to what built your format. Active Rock does not play it safe — they still hammer Black Sabbath 50 years later. So why are alternative stations abandoning the foundation? Carlota read that article. She felt like someone finally got it.
“He gave me validation without even realizing he was doing that,” she says. “Why did we forget? Why are we ignoring what built us?”
The dayparts tell the story too. David & Mahoney own the mornings. They are syndicated out of Phoenix now. However, they were born at X107.5. They get it. They fall right into the brand without anyone having to pull their leash. Carlota does middays. Meanwhile, Polly Cover anchors afternoons. It is not a stacked lineup that cost a fortune. Rather, it is a lineup that believes.
The Audience That Never Left
But here is the real story. It explains why this station has survived 30 years of format chasing and ownership changes. The real story is the audience.
“This listener is more of a lifestyle listener,” Carlota explains. “These people have been through stuff. They probably come from broken families. They are highly educated. They have been well-versed in the streets and difficult times.”
This is not hyperbole. The alternative audience has always been the people who did not fit anywhere else. These are the kids who found salvation in music. The music spoke to dysfunction instead of smoothing it over. X107.5 has never tried to change that. Instead, Carlota leans into it.
“We are broken too, and we have been through it as well,” she says. “There is this relationship where the listener is like, ‘You are not talking down to us. You are not talking at us. You are sharing your life with us.’ We are not a smooth format. We are crunchy and broken and rocky and dysfunctional, just like everybody else. We are a very truthful, honest radio station, and that really speaks to our people.”
Living the Las Vegas Difference
That honesty extends beyond the music. Las Vegas is a city designed to separate people from their money on the Strip. Water costs $50. Parking charges feel like a mugging in a tuxedo. Most radio stations would love to do events at the high-roller properties. X107.5 tells them to take a hike.
“We flip our middle finger to those lights,” Carlota laughs. “People who live in Las Vegas — we do not go to the Strip. We do not like paying for parking. We are dead against it. When we do events for listeners, we do them off-strip where people actually want to be.”
It is a small thing, but it matters. It says: we are one of you. We are not selling something to you. We are living this with you.
The Future of Alternative
When you ask her what X107.5 should change, she says they are already doing it. They are doing it slowly and deliberately. They are not chasing what is happening elsewhere. They are not going to play Mumford and Sons just because it is popular. But they might play New Order. They might play Stereo MCs. Because it is not about the genre — it is about the truth.
“It just has to have an edge and a truth to it that can coincide with the other truths that we hold,” she says.
Five years from now, Carlota sees the station doing one thing. She sees them staying true to their core. They will not capitulate to trends. They will not chase the format of the month. Instead, they will be a genuinely alternative radio station in 2026. That is the way it was in 1992.
A Station That Defines the Market
Here is the thing about broadcasting that non-radio people do not understand. There are stations that change with the market. More importantly, there are stations that define the market. X107.5 has decided to be the latter. After 30 years, in a town built on reinvention, Carlota is betting big. She believes the most radical thing a radio station can do is simply not sell out.
For people who live in Las Vegas — and for anyone who tunes in online because they miss that city — that commitment matters. That commitment to honesty, edge, and texture is exactly what they cannot find anywhere else.
That is not just alternative radio. That is true alternative radio. And it still matters.
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David Hill serves as a Music Radio Editor, Columnist and Features writer for Barrett Media. A radio lifer with more than 30 years behind the mic, in the control room, and in the program director’s chair, David’s career spans influential stops at brands such as WIYY 98 Rock, WBAL-AM, and 99X. He has worked across multiple formats and ownership groups, including iHeartMedia and Cumulus Media, developing talent, breaking music, and navigating every major industry shift from diary to PPM and terrestrial dominance to streaming disruption. When he’s not writing or analyzing the industry, Dave runs The Tune Farm, a marketing firm built to help artists and brands grow audience the same way great radio always has—by creating connection, not just impressions. He can be reached at David@BarrettMedia.com.