KUSP’s demise should be a wake-up call for all of us.

Despite the busy news cycle, the news out of Santa Cruz late Sunday night got our attention. At 7:12pm, a press release was sent out announcing that KUSP would stop broadcasting after 45 years, at midnight, making July 31 its last day on the air.

You can tune into 88.9 FM today and hear static. KUSP has gone dark. No more eclectic music, iconoclastic DJs, live feeds from the Monterey Jazz Festival or Carmel Bach Fest.

For those hearty souls living down the Big Sur coast, it means no more broadcast radio at all, since KUSP was the only station that made it there thanks to a series of relays installed a couple of decades ago.

Considering that KUSP had been on the air since 1972, it’s heartbreaking news. It’s been a voice for all of us, an independent media that has covered the politics of the area (though less in recent years), and arts and music, all in a non-commercial format.

In 1984, KUSP was the first local station to join National Public Radio and broadcast “All Things Considered.” In 2003, Pacifica Radio was added to the mix. In 2008, KUSP added “BBC News” and “Marketplace.” Last September, the station switched from a mix of news and music to all-music format, to differentiate the station from KAZU and attract younger listeners, and also in an effort to come out from under its $700,000 debt.

It used to be KAZU tried to compete with KUSP. KAZU, once based in Pacific Grove (it’s now on the campus of CSU Monterey Bay), tried to compete but was no match for the more seasoned KUSP. KUSP had NPR, festival live-feeds, a radio auction.

KAZU went through its own financial woes back then, and went up for sale. KUSP made a bid, but the KAZU board sold the station to CSU Monterey Bay’s nonprofit foundation, in large part to keep the station local. KAZU’s research then showed that a public radio station needed to air NPR stories to bring in major local support necessary to keep afloat. So KAZU began subscribing to NPR, and the public radio competition for Monterey Bay began. You could flip between the stations during the peak drive times, and hear the same broadcast, barely a half-second apart.

KAZU and KUSP fought for listeners, sponsors and donors. It was more public radio than the public would support. Most communities our size do not and cannot support two independent public radio stations.

I first began listening to KUSP in 1986. While it probably was to hear NPR, nearly every Friday night I also tuned into “Roots Rock Reggae,” a show spun by Lance Linares, who later became the head of the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County. It introduced me to backbeat reggae. Nothing similar could be heard anywhere then. There was no Spotify, no Pandora. If you wanted to hear new music, public radio was a provider, the inspiration. I wasn’t even a huge reggae fan, but Linares’ show was well done, and made for an entertaining Friday evening.

Perhaps what we’re witnessing is survival of the fittest. Perhaps a community our size can only realistically support one public radio station, though we still have KZSC out of UC Santa Cruz (88.1 FM) and Robert Louis Stevenson School’s station (91.9 FM), which airs BBC.

Perhaps KUSP made a strategic error by running “All Things Considered” and “Morning Edition” at the times KAZU did. Perhaps the station was too Santa Cruz-centric.

Whatever the reason, we have lost a public radio station, and it was the one not affiliated with a state university or a private school, the truly independent voice of public radio. That isn’t a good thing. Independent means independent.

BRADLEY ZEVE is the founder and CEO of the Weekly.