QUICK TAKES - Jan. 16, 2009

Indie 103, the high-profile but low-rated alternative-music radio station, ceased original programming Thursday morning, a little more than five years after it debuted, but said it will continue life on the Internet.

At 10 a.m. the station bowed out by playing “My Way,” both the versions by Frank Sinatra and late Sex Pistol Sid Vicious, a nod to the genre-bending playlist that Indie often aired. After that, listeners heard only a repeating loop of songs, interspersed by a recorded announcement that Indie was moving to the Internet.

From its start in December 2003, Indie -- an FM simulcast at 103.1 of KDLD in Santa Monica and KDLE in Newport Beach -- was a curiosity: a commercial station that played modern rock, punk, metal, country and other types of alternative music, sprinkled among various eclectic programs. It also featured an unlikely owner, the Santa Monica-based Spanish-language broadcasting chain Entravision Communications.

The station cultivated an aura of hipness and iconoclasm -- great for making a small and loyal audience feel like part of an exclusive club but not necessarily a good business model. In the most recent Arbitron ratings, Indie ranked 38th in the market, averaging just .6% of the listening audience, compared with the 3.5% for alternative music outlet KROQ-FM (106.7).

Entravision declined to say what the station’s new format would be or when it would go on the air.

-- Steve Carney