[5] Crosby-Avery was owned by Leon Crosby, a general manager of San Francisco's KMPX, a station that had just gone to a full-time freeform progressive rock format, and Lewis Avery, former partner in a national ad sales firm.

[11] National Science Network's management of the KPPC stations was turbulent, capped by an October 1971 mass firing of the air staff,[12] but the period also included technical upgrades.

NSN moved the studios out of the church basement and to 99 Chester Street in Pasadena and the transmitter to Flint Peak, with a slight power increase to 25,700 watts.

[1] In 1973, with National Science Network's estate selling off its assets, KROQ's owners bought KPPC-AM-FM (immediately divesting the AM station to meet then-current ownership limits), changed the calls to KROQ-FM and hired Shadoe Stevens to create a new rock format described as high-energy "all-cutting-edge-rock-all-the-time" and began simulcasting as "The ROQs of L.A.: Mother Rock!"

When concert promoter Ken Roberts booked Sly and the Family Stone and Sha Na Na for one KROQ-sponsored show at the Los Angeles Coliseum and the station found itself unable to cover expenses, Roberts agreed to pay for the band to play the show in exchange for a small ownership stake in the station.

[23] Roberts joined a sprawling ownership group which included a doctor, two dairymen, a political lobbyist, a secretary, and several other minor investors.

[23] Roberts, with his background in the music industry, made him a logical choice for president of the struggling company in the minds of the other shareholders, and he was elected such at the first meeting he attended in 1974.

As punk expanded its hold on the music scene during the mid to late 1970s, and KROQ steadily adding more of it to their freeform format, this cemented their place in the Los Angeles market.

[25] In 1979, Shadoe Stevens once again left the station, with Rick Carroll taking over as program director, and took all of the new music and combined it in a Top 40 formatic structure.

During that decade, the station mixed punk rock, such as The Ramones, The Clash, The Weirdos, Fear, The Pandoras and X, with new wave, such as U2, Oingo Boingo, Talking Heads, The Police, The Cars, Devo, Sparks, Berlin, Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys, Blondie, ska and similar genres with artists such as English Beat, Fine Young Cannibals and 1960s underground rocker Iggy Pop, and huge mainstream artists such as The Beach Boys and The Rolling Stones.

Also during this period, KROQ began focusing on college rock (or so-called alternative rock) by adding bands into their playlist such as R.E.M., the Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Psychedelic Furs, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Replacements, Camper Van Beethoven, Jane's Addiction, the Pixies, The Alarm, The Cult, Violent Femmes, Love and Rockets, Dramarama and Social Distortion, as well as heavier acts like Faith No More and Living Colour and guitar-oriented hip-hop groups like Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys.

[28][29][30][31] Throughout the 1990s, KROQ's format focused on mainly alternative rock (or alternative metal), grunge, punk pop, Britpop, industrial music and nu metal, giving up-and-coming bands their first exposure on the station or in Southern California, including Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails, Oasis, Foo Fighters, Green Day, The Offspring, Sublime, No Doubt, Rage Against the Machine, Korn, Bad Religion, Weezer, Blink-182, Jimmy Eat World, Hole, Garbage, Lenny Kravitz and System of a Down.

The radio station's format had repeated much of the same formula as the 1990s, mixing heavier acts like Linkin Park, Staind, P.O.D., Seether, Velvet Revolver, Cold and Saliva, with punk rock like Rise Against, Sum 41, AFI, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Jimmy Eat World, Panic!

at the Disco and Thrice, and with alternative/indie/garage rock acts such as Muse, Queens of the Stone Age, The Strokes, The Bravery, Arcade Fire and The Killers.

[41][42][43] This new crop of rock acts found considerable popularity on the radio station while sharing airspace with many KROQ veterans such as Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, Foo Fighters, Weezer, Green Day, The Offspring, Blink-182, No Doubt, System of a Down, Korn, Jane's Addiction, the Beastie Boys, Sublime, Bad Religion, Stone Temple Pilots, Incubus, Nine Inch Nails, Social Distortion and Cypress Hill.

Steve Jones came to KROQ from Indie 103.1 with a Sunday night show called "Jonesy's Jukebox", which ran from 7 to 9PM during 2010–2013 before moving to KLOS.

[44] In February 2015, KROQ severed ties with Boyd "Doc on the Roq" Britton and Lisa May after deciding to drop news and traffic.

[49] On March 18, 2020, Kevin Ryder announced on Twitter that he, Allie MacKay, Jensen Karp, producer Dave Sanchez and contributor Jonathan Kantrowe, had all been let go from the morning show.

Kaplan's strategy differed from Weatherly's; he immediately shifted the playlist to focus on alternative pop, with heavy airplay of artists including Billie Eilish, Machine Gun Kelly, Post Malone, Powfu, 24kGoldn, Beabadoobee and Dominic Fike.

In August 2018, Entercom announced it would re-launch the subchannel, adding former KROQ personalities Freddy Snakeskin and Tami Heide as DJs.