KLOS radio’s Mark Thompson retiring from The Mark & Brian Show

Jan Young
InstantRiverside.com

Mark Thompson of KLOS radio’s popular long-time morning team, The Mark & Brian Show, has announced his retirement in an interview with LARadio.com. Thompson, 56, and his wife, Lynda, have already relocated to North Carolina and have been traveling between the two coasts during the transition.

Mark Thompson (from Birmingham, Alabama with a background in radio) and Brian Phelps (from Cambridge, Illinois with a background in comedy improv), arrived in Los Angeles in 1987 (pictured together, then and now). Their down-home humor quickly endeared them to the listeners and they became a fixture in morning drive-time radio, reaching across all demographics with their listener calls, comedy sketches, interviews, games, trivia, jokes, and pranks, all interspersed with engaging conversation about everything under the sun, including even the most intimate details of their lives. Together with their listeners and their in-studio “family”, they’ve shared births, deaths, and everything in between.

The popularity of their show and their home base of L.A. gave them fairly easy access to the sets of movies and television shows in production, and they made appearances in several. They often referred to their roles as those of “concerned onlookers”. The two eventually had their own short-lived weekly television series called The Adventures of Mark & Brian, a reality show that was loosely based on their radio show.

The all-star lineups at their annual Christmas show often make it one of the hottest tickets in town.

The Mark & Brian Show originates in Los Angeles and is now in national syndication.

Mark & Brian are two-time winners of Billboard Magazine’s “Air Personalities of the Year” award, and have received a National Assocation of Broadcasters Marconi Award as “Air Personalities of the Year.” They have also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Thompson’s departure will surely change the landscape of morning radio in southern California.

The pair’s last show will be on August 17th.

Filed under Entertainment