Kevin and Bean was the morning show on KROQ-FM, an alternative rock-format radio station in Los Angeles, California. It was hosted by Kevin Ryder and Gene "Bean" Baxter. The show was on the air from 1990 to 2019 and interspersed music and news with comedy, celebrity interviews, listener call-ins, and live music performances.
Baxter announced his departure from the show in early 2019, with his last show being November 7 of that year. The show continued on with new episodes and Baxter's nickname in its title until January 2, 2020, when the short-lived spin-off morning show Kevin in the Morning debuted. Just over 10 weeks later on March 17, 2020, the spin-off was cancelled with all cast and crew fired, effective the following day.
History
The show debuted on KROQ on December 31, 1989, when it hosted the annual countdown of the year's best songs.
On November 10, 2008, the Kevin and Bean Show started an afternoon segment, "Cinco De La Tarde" weekdays from 5-6 p.m. As of August 3, 2009, this segment has been discontinued and the morning show has been restored to its original 10:00 AM end time. A Best of Kevin and Bean show called "Same Shit, Different Day" was added on Saturday mornings airing from 7:00-10:00 AM.
On May 11, 2009, Kevin and Bean began syndicating on KEDJ, 103.9 The Edge in Phoenix, Arizona, KFRR 104.1 Fresno and KRZQ-FM Reno. The show is also available as a podcast on iTunes.
In February 2015 the Kevin and Bean show let go of long-time contributors, Lisa May and Boyd R. Britton (Doc on the ROQ). May started as a traffic reporter on the program and had grown to become a key contributor of the Kevin and Bean Show during her 24 years with the program, while Doc had been providing the news for 27 years. Kevin and Bean explained that management had made it clear audiences were not tuning in to KROQ for traffic or news, so the painful decision was made to make changes to the show. Allie Mac Kay later joined the show to help fill the role lost by the exit of May.
On April 14, 2015, Kevin and Bean were inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame during a ceremony hosted by NAB President (and former Oregon Senator) Gordon Smith. Bean said, "We are happy to share the recognition with our great team who works just as hard as we do to make the show successful." The three-day NAB trade show is held every April at Las Vegas Convention Center.
On March 6, 2019, declaring "Thirty years is a good time to stop," Bean announced that he would leave the show before the end of the year and move to England. His last day on the air was November 7, 2019.
On March 18, 2020, Kevin Ryder announced on Twitter that he and the other personalities on "Kevin in the Mornings With Allie & Jensen" had been fired.
Format
Opening segments
Each episode opens with an audio montage (usually created by Baxter) featuring musical and audio clips that draw from current events in politics, pop-culture, and the news. An overview of the day's show is also given, as well as any small talk about the cast's day-to-day lives.
Hourly segments
Music from the standard lineup of KROQ-FM is played regularly during the program.
Recurring segments
Many of the show's periodically recurring segments are based on listener participation and involve the hosts taking calls on a discussion topic or for a guest, or involve games and contests created around promotional giveaways. Ryder and Baxter will also occasionally read emails sent to them, and play messages from the show's voice mail service, known as the "Afro Line". Other segments focus on the hosts and their personalities and quirks, like "Thanks for That Info, Bean", which pokes fun at Baxter's intense interest in seemingly trivial topics, and "A Moment with...", where a humorous audio clip of a statement made on-air by a host is replayed. "Would You Like to Take That Back?" is another feature during which the hosts give each other the option of "taking back" an unsuccessful or poorly delivered joke or pun.