In case anyone is keeping score, the Future of Rock and Roll ended at 5PM this past Friday.

For the past 20 years, the radio station WOXY, in all its different forms, has been identified by its slogan ‘the Future of Rock and Roll’ (one which Dustin Hoffman repeated ad nauseam in The Rain Man). Since its creation in 1983, the station has stood as a beacon to music that is truly alternative and independent. But the station’s long and illustrious life was finally put to rest this past Friday when they went off the air for the final-but not first-time.

WOXY has been operating for the past two years as an internet-only stream with no actual FM frequency. The station ceased to exist in the traditional sense in 2004 when the 97.7 FM frequency was sold off by the owners, Doug and Linda Balogh. Salvation then came in the form of investors who allowed the station to take on a new life on the internet-one which they quickly embraced; and for two years, the Future of Rock and Roll lived online. Unfortunately, this might have been a bit too much.

“Lots of people have said that our attempt to run an internet-radio station like a ‘regular’ radio station was just too far ahead of its time,” said Matt Shiv, WOXY’s Music Director. “Most internet-only broadcasts are done as a hobby. They have volunteer staffs and low overhead, often running out of somebody’s basement or spare bedroom. We had a full-service station, with two streams of music, full-time employees, live sessions, and lots of high costs associated with streaming.”

Though WOXY, like most good things in life, met its demise at the hands of financing woes, it did more in those two years to further the local, national and international music community than most radio stations will do during this decade. After becoming an online-only radio station, WOXY brought in touring bands to play Lounge Act sessions-a feature that drew bands ranging from Low to The Wrens. In 2006, WOXY was helped promote the Desdemona Music Festival, which drew thousands to the Cincinnati area to watch performances by Ghostface, The Apples in Stereo and many more. If nothing else, station serves as an example that it’s possible to entertain the masses without losing sight of what it really means to be an “alternative.”

These days, it almost seems as though people don’t want to hear challenging music. The public seemed to have stopped wanting their music to pick them up and shake them sometime around 1986. Still, for a station that did its fair share of listener-shaking through computer speakers and car stereos, WOXY was actually embraced by those lucky enough to cross paths with it. Rolling Stone named it one of the four best and last great independent radio stations in the country in 2003 and in 1998, USA Today published a story which hailed WOXY as being on “the world’s wavelength.” And though they have received a tremendous outpouring of support from the press, that pales in comparison to the devotion of their listeners.

“We never hit a critical mass with our audience, but we did something that most media companies never get to do — we befriended our audience,” Shiv said. “We were in constant communication with them. We picked up the phone, we answered their e-mails, we treated them with respect. I spend $150 a month on cable services and can’t even figure out how to make it to an actual person on the telephone.”

Before signing off for the last time, the WOXY DJs gave an impassioned speech and then spun their final set of music: Oasis’ “Acquiesce,” Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” and “Kick Out The Jams” from the MC5.

“We didn’t want to go out on a somber note,” said Shiv. “The station was always a labor of love and we wanted to celebrate it in the final day.”