As KROQ gets ready to hold the 35th edition of its “Almost Acoustic Christmas” concert event next month, the “world famous” alternative rock station has even more reason to celebrate: Not only did the station hit its best ratings in September since Summer 2004, but KROQ is once again a force in Los Angeles morning drive radio.
Variety noted last year that KROQ has been on a comeback ever since the returns of longtime program director Kevin Weatherly in June 2022 and former morning show host Kevin Ryder, who was given the afternoon drive-time slot in April 2025. But the rebirth of KROQ can also be attributed to the massive growth of “Klein.Ally.Show” in the mornings, which has seen a remarkable rise, particularly over the past year.
In September, KROQ as a whole posted a 6.7 share in the Los Angeles market among adults 25-54 — the station’s highest number in that measurement in 22 years. In October, it rose to No. 1 with 25-54 in the market, ahead of Hot AC KBIG “My FM.”
Meanwhile, this September in L.A. morning drive, hosts Kevin Klein and Ally Johnson were No. 1 in all major demos: 18-34 (10.8 share), 18-49 (9.9 share) and 25-54 (9.4). In 25-54, the show has been tops for six out of ten months so far this year. In October, the show dipped to No. 2 in 25-54, as it continues to battle it out with competitor “The Woody Show” on rival KYSR (“Alt 98.7”). “The Woody Show,” which regained the No. 1 slot in the demo this October, has nonetheless seen its once-hefty advantage over KROQ evaporate as the two duke it out. (“The Woody Show” didn’t do itself any favors by switching out a few of its longtime players, including Renae Ravey, which upset some listeners.)
“This just shows that KROQ, in Southern California, people have a really strong relationship with the station,” Weatherly says. “That can be positive or negative. When you break that trust, they can get really pissed. But you can build it back over time if you have a good morning show and good personalities.”
As recently as a year and a half ago, KROQ’s “Klein/Ally Show” was still slogging through morning drive. Throughout 2024 and the first half of 2025, the show was consistently hovering between 10th and 18th place in Los Angeles’ radio ratings among the key adults 25-54 demo, mirroring the massive declines that KROQ had faced after making some terribly misguided decisions (including changing up its music mix and firing Ryder) at the start of the pandemic in 2020.
Klein (first with Ted Stryker and then along with Ally) was tasked with taking over morning drive after Ryder was let go — and had to bear the brunt of angry KROQ fans for several years. It was a move made by previous management that was made harder by happening right at the start of COVID, when listeners desired the comfort of familiar voices.
“We were put in a bad spot, and we had to really fight to do the type of show we wanted,” Klein says. “There were a lot of meetings we had where we were literally interviewing our replacements. It sounded they were going to add another person to our show, but we could tell what was happening: they were ready to punt. We really did fear that any day our job was going to be stripped from us.”
Klein knew he and Johnson had big shoes to fill: “Kevin & Bean” was an L.A. morning radio institution, running for 30 years (and landing in two broadcasting halls of fame) until Gene “Bean” Baxter left the station at the end of 2019. Ryder continued with co-hosts Allie Mac Kay and Jensen Karp, but the three of them were all fired in April 2020.
“It was a tough position they were put in, replacing Kevin Ryder,” Weatherly says. But it was not only that; then-KROQ program director Mike Kaplan had changed up the station’s music mix, and there was a sense that the once-mighty alternative rocker had permanently lost its way.
When he returned to KROQ, Weatherly quickly tweaked the sound — but he also decided to give “Klein/Ally” time to build as he set out to revive the station. “If you’ve got a really funny show, you ignore the ratings until the ratings prove it right. We believed in the show and knew that it would find its audience if we were patient — and that’s what happened,” he says.
Says Klein: “He basically said, ‘Do the show that you guys want to do and I think it’ll work. But if it doesn’t, at least you did the show you wanted to do and you’ll know you went out doing what you thought was right for LA.’”
At that point, “Klein/Ally” dug in: The show went deeply personal, including Johnson’s reports on her attempts to get pregnant (she was even injecting her IVF treatments live on air).
“I’m sorry you had to see my ass,” Johnson says of the fertility shots, which were shared on the show’s YouTube page. “But we have gotten pretty transparent about our lives, and when big things come up, it feels weird not to talk about them. So when this journey started for my wife and me, it was like, there is going to be some good stuff and some sad stuff. And in a way, I’ve gotten used to processing personal things through this show.”
Johnson says that’s given her and Klein a unique bond with their listeners. When she opened up about her own miscarriage, Johnson heard from emotional listeners who had gone through similar struggles.
But there’s the silly stuff too. The show launched a campaign defending In-N-Out after USA Today proclaimed that the rival Habit chain had the nation’s best burger. “We just knew that’s just patently false,” Klein says, “so we put up a giant billboard next to their billboard that said ‘No. 1 is overrated. In-N-Out’s always better, signed, LA’s 14th most popular radio show.’”
“Klein/Ally” also got some local media attention when Klein’s wife had her car stolen one morning — spurring the hosts to enlist listeners to help them track down the Range Rover (which they found!). And when L.A. eatery Mel’s Diner removed the disgraced Sean “Diddy” Combs’ signed photo from its walls, Klein and Johnson lobbied the restaurant to replace it with their own publicity shot.
“Some of these things were stupid at the time and are still stupid now,” Klein says. “But these were little things that ended up getting out to people. Then I would see comments under the posts, and they would say, like, ‘Oh, I haven’t thought about KROQ in years. I used to love KROQ!’ I think it just reminded people that there’s stuff still happening that’s interesting on KROQ.”
Weatherly had managed to resuscitate KROQ by April 2025, when Ryder’s return sent a signal to former listeners that it was OK to tune back in. (And it worked: Ryder was No. 2 in afternoons this September.) Another former KROQ jock, Doug “Sluggo” Roberts, also returned to middays.
“Over the last couple of years, we definitely have seen listeners coming back to KROQ,” Weatherly says. “And I think as people have come back and discovered ‘Klein/Ally,’ they’re like, ‘This is a really great morning show. They’re real. They’re authentic, vulnerable on the air. They’re funny. I think that Nielsen has finally caught up to it.’”
Skyler Barberio
KROQ and “Klein/Ally” also aggressively expanded ways to sample the morning show. Last summer, the program added an extra hour, broadcasting until 11 a.m. when most morning drive shows wrap at 10. “Klein/Ally” rebroadcasts were also aired at 10 p.m. in order to catch a different audience. And the show went all-in on social media, including its daily livestreams on YouTube.
“It’s been really nice to feel like we have support, even if the ratings weren’t showing it yet, and room to breathe,” Johnson says. “You feel so stifled creatively if someone’s constantly looking over your shoulder, and then the ratings reports you start obsessing over, and you can’t work from that place.”
Klein notes that ratings are fickle: “We couldn’t enjoy it for long because as soon as we were told we were No. 1, we immediately were told by Weatherly that this could be a fluke,” he jokes. “So right now we’re in fluke phase, and we’ll see how long that goes. To someone driving down the street tomorrow, they don’t really care if we’re No. 33 — where we’ve been — or No. 1. They just want to laugh and have fun and feel connected. So that keeps us hungry.”
Adds Weatherly: “We know ratings will go up and go down. But we have confidence in the show that they put out every single day. They’re hitting their stride from a ratings standpoint at the exact same time that we just announced the 35th annual ‘Almost Acoustic Christmas,’ and we felt like we’ve got one of the better lineups we’ve had in years.”
That lineup for the Dec. 12 event — first revealed on “Klein/Ally,” naturally — includes Foo Fighters, Weezer, Sublime, Interpol, Joyce Manor, Julia Wolf, Almost Monday and The Linda Lindas.
“It just it feels good to have everything kind of clicking at the same time,” Weatherly says.
