Cold War Kids perform at Live 105’s BFD at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View on June 10, 2017.

Audacy, the media company that owns KITS 105.3 FM on Sunday has decided to bring back the alt-rock format listener-favorite station Live 105, with several familiar DJs, killing off DJ-less “adult hits” format Dave FM after a two-year experiment. The announcement was first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.

The new Live 105 will be turned on at 10:53 a.m. on Monday, Audacy spokesman David Heim told the San Jose Mercury News.

The station had been on the air from 1986 to 2021, with the last four of those years as Alt-105, favoriting a branding template by Audacy after Entercom Radio merged with CBS Radio in 2017. Over those years, it introduced Bay Area listeners to diverse, left-of-center bands like The Cure, the Killers and Arcade Fire. It also played a lot of Red Hot Chili Peppers. The station was unceremoniously flipped over to the algorithm-based Dave FM, billed as “totally random radio,” in 2021, which coincided with massive layoffs, including long-time station program director and show host Aaron Axelsen, who’s since launched streaming station Flood FM.

Axelsen is one of several former Live 105 DJs linked to return in some capacity. He will host new artist spotlight Soundcheck, and will eventually bring back electronica show Subsonic, he shared on social media.

Dan Smith- the first artist on the planet to officially welcome back LIVE 105 to the Bay Area airwaves! 🥰📻@bastille @1053davefm pic.twitter.com/s0sHoFq1gt

— aaron axelsen 🪩 (@AaronAxelsen) June 4, 2023

“We are proud to bring back this local favorite that gives our loyal listeners and favorite alternative artists from the ’90s to today a place to call home again, right here in the Bay Area,” Audacy San Francisco and Sacramento regional manager and vice president Stacey Kauffman told the Mercury News.

Other returning DJs include Miles Anzaldo and Ben “Party Ben” Gill. For the first few weeks, the station will continue on without DJs or other on-air personalities, Audacy brand manager John Allers told the Mercury News. It was unclear whether the new station has plans to bring back Live 105’s signature events like the BFD summer concert and Not So Silent Night before the holidays in December.

Allers told the San Francisco Chronicle the switch from Live 105 to Dave FM was viewed as an error by higher-ups within the company, which owns more than 230 radio stations nationwide.

“They looked back at the history of what we believe is an iconic brand and probably thought it was a mistake to let it go the first time,” he said.