Why do some people including Art Bell say the show has changed?

[Kingdomofnye]

What does Art and everyone else mean?  How has the show changed since Art left?  I was late to the game and really got into it in 2007/2008 and Art had already left, but my own impression even in these last 5 years, is that the show isnt really about interesting paranormal things like Mels Hole, or that distressed area 51 worker anymore.  It seems like less time is spent with those callers, and the listeners who had such creepy and facinating stories.  And it seems like less and less, the stories and comments listeners DO make arent as compelling as even 5 years ago.  I sort of get the impression during the Art Bell days you'd be guaranteed some creepy and intriguing call, nowadays doesnt seem like it happens often.

Is this accurate?

[Pragmier]

I'm with you, having found C2C about the same time. Lately I've been listening to the Art stream here, and the difference in callers is unbelievable. Like many have said the show now is little more than an infomercial; I use it to fall asleep - it works wonders. Knapp's shows, and sometimes Ian's, are an exception. Unfortunately it doesn't appear they have [too much] say in diverting from the 'playlist' of quacks.

[ChandlersDad]

In Art's day, there were Art Bell fan clubs across the country, discussion groups that would invite guests from C2C to speak to them. Art may have been pretending, but the schtick at the time was that together Art and his listeners were seeking THE TRUTH! There was a sense of community among listeners, many of whom were very intelligent.

Well, it all fizzled. Art sold out to Premiere Radio. We never found THE TRUTH. Instead we just got Ed Dames (a twisted Art Bell favorite inflicted upon us constantly) and Richard Hoagland.

After Art sold out for big bucks to Premiere, and announced his retirement about 4 times, his listener base grew disconnected from him. The fantasy of community searching for THE TRUTH was destroyed, and with George it just became another formula radio show. George proved to be rather dumb but full of ego, and the new listeners never knew the difference.

[Kingdomofnye]

going along with what pragmier said, in around 2007/2008, i remember some bizaare stuff, like the EVP guests I remember being so scared by some of that, I was afraid to get out of bed and go to the bathroom.  Guests and callers like that never call in anymore. 

[mombird3]

I agree. Art sold the show and got a lot of money. If he wanted to do it his way-- with his lawyers then his name should have been removed or he should have gone and let it go-- to end. As in television, when it all has been done and there is no more originality, end it before it gets stale. Sorry but George sucks and the show is stale. Ian and Knapp are very good. But Premier does not want them full time, or maybe they have their own work in other areas and cannot take the time.

I am tired of ED Dames, 2012, Ancient Aliens, Talking to the dead, over and over again. Nothing new to say. With Art there were some very interesting shows. Like the one about the man that was hit by lightening and lived and came back from being dead for a time (20 min). That was a good show. And the other show Art did about Pam, the woman who had the brain surgery and had to be frozen before they could operate and get the tumor. And she said she was dead and heard everything in the operating room. I listened to the entire show.

The callers to Art's show were interesting and had a brain. I notice some of the same callers to George. He does not limit callers to one call every week. I remember Ian getting angry with a caller once. And it was on a similar topic about te end and survival. And the guest complained that if he knew beforehand that it was going to be a all doomsday show he would have bailed long before. And Ian caught a little bit of the fall out from that one. It never happened again. Maybe he got a complaint from Premier about that one. And that was the one memorable show that I liked. That guest never returned. some of Art's stuff was pure make believe but he made it real.

I would say it is time to kill all of the shows, and when the ratings tank, it will go out too. 

[The General]

There was a magical time called the 90's when paranormal and conspiracy topics were cutting edge.  Coast to Coast was the gathering place for all of the night people interested in the unusual news and views that no other outlet was distributing.  The listeners of C2C were hip to Y2K, the Mayan 2012 thing, Roswell, and a host of other things WAY before your average Joe had even heard of these things.  It was quite a ride.  Even though most of the stuff turned out to be bunk, it was incredibly entertaining.  And Art was the perfect ringleader for this night circus.

Now, the subjects are jaded.  The new callers are dumb.  The new host is little more than a talking mustache.  The guests are bad actors and old hat vaudevillian has-beens.  Coast has become a shadow of its former glory.  George and his entourage are going over the same old stuff mostly, only now it's just a throwback to the glory days of Art. 

You can think of early C2C as early Rock n Roll.  When Elvis was new to the music world, he was cutting edge.  He was controversial, he was edgy, he was rebellious, and so out of place in his surroundings that it seemed that he was from the future.  Art was like that, in a radio guy kind of way.  Not that he was a rock star or as cool as Elvis, but he was edgy.  This was the kingdom of NYE!  The night people gathered around the flickering flames of their radios and were riveted.

George is like Sha Na Na.  Out of place, square, and echoing things that he doesn't even get.

[PB the Deplorable]

... I remember Ian getting angry with a caller once. And it was on a similar topic about te end and survival. And the guest complained that if he knew beforehand that it was going to be a all doomsday show he would have bailed long before. And Ian caught a little bit of the fall out from that one. It never happened again. Maybe he got a complaint from Premier about that one. And that was the one memorable show that I liked. That guest never returned...

Wasn't that Steve Quayle, and he wanted to talk about doomsday stuff and Ian was having none of it?  Ian ended up apoligizing on about the next 3 or 4 shows he did.

I mark that as the end of Ian's good shows (for the most part) - after that he was more detached and more of an ass.

[Morgus]

Just listen to classic Art Bell shows like on Somewhere in Time to see the difference.
Art Bell took UNSCREENED lines for callers, allowing such fascinating tales as Mel's Hole, Madman Markham, etc.
Noory on the other hand uses multi-layered SCREENED lines that filter out the interesting callers. He wants callers that suck up to him instead.
So Noory gets callers like UFO Phil instead.

[PB the Deplorable]

Ian has claimed to callers at various times that the show hasn't changed, and that it's always changed. 

Depends which callers he wanted to argue with and berate I guess.

[LacyWoodrow]

I think the main reason why it has changed is because when someone does or says something phoney, they don't get called on it.

sure the show is about weird stuff, but when it gets just dumb and quirky, nobody can stand a guy that just agrees with everything being said. It makes me cringe. Not to mention his gaffes, and when he was caught lying on air.


http://youtu.be/E8lnXZ2iXtA
I'd rather listen to Art because he stood his ground and protected his show.

[ChandlersDad]

I think the main reason why it has changed is because when someone does or says something phoney, they don't get called on it.

sure the show is about weird stuff, but when it gets just dumb and quirky, nobody can stand a guy that just agrees with everything being said. It makes me cringe. Not to mention his gaffes, and when he was caught lying on air.


http://youtu.be/E8lnXZ2iXtA
I'd rather listen to Art because he stood his ground and protected his show.

Art was very biased towards certain guests, such as Ed Dames. He never seemed to call them on their constantly failing predictions based on remote viewing. Ed Dames infuriated me in 1998 by proclaiming that he remote viewed the End of the World. He told an international audience that this would occur when gay men were allowed to be married.   I was stunned because Art did not call him on it but just agreed by way of silence.  Later I found out that Ed Dames is a right wing fundamentalist Christian (which always seems to translate into scapegoating gay people for everything wrong in society. Some nutty Baptist minister is already preaching that gays are the reason for Hurricane Sandy). Anyway, I was disgusted with Art for about a year or more after he let such an outrageous claim go without any comment.

Art brought to many of us paranormal topics for the first time. Remember that in the 90's there wasn't the large number of cable channels and programs dedicated to the paranormal. There was SIGHTINGS, which was a good show, but it only lasted a couple years (they ran out of material?). So Art was a novelty and got in on the paranormal bandwagon before anyone else of his caliber.

But I read his auto-biography and was shocked at the "real man".  Art, for example, felt that meditation was wrong because it opened you up to demonic entities and possible possession (while the majority of the Eastern world has practiced meditation for thousands of years). He was also very anti-gay (this is a personal issue for me because my brother is gay and I get sick and tired of the harassment he receives from very dumb people). The book revealed a man who was surprisingly narrow minded considering the topics he presented. The book seemed like JC was the ghost writer at times. Quite a shock to me.

Art also gave a pass to Paglini and many others who made predictions that never came true.

[ChandlersDad]

What does Art and everyone else mean?  How has the show changed since Art left?  I was late to the game and really got into it in 2007/2008 and Art had already left, but my own impression even in these last 5 years, is that the show isnt really about interesting paranormal things like Mels Hole, or that distressed area 51 worker anymore.  It seems like less time is spent with those callers, and the listeners who had such creepy and facinating stories.  And it seems like less and less, the stories and comments listeners DO make arent as compelling as even 5 years ago.  I sort of get the impression during the Art Bell days you'd be guaranteed some creepy and intriguing call, nowadays doesnt seem like it happens often.

Is this accurate?

In just a few words, Art Bell had a conversation with the guest. You felt like you were eavesdropping on a private conversation. With George Noory, it is painfully obvious that he is just an interviewer. He does not really connect with the guest (unless the guest is a doom and gloom type who likes to discuss evil angels). George obviously just reads down a list of questions prepared for him, often asking questions that the guest already answered!!!  At times, I am amazed that the guest remains so polite. I'd be tempted to say in a loud voice "I just answered that a couple minutes ago. Don't you listen to the guest's answers?" Of course, I would immediately be dumped from the show and never be allowed back again, like Jeremy Vaeni, who became irate when Jeremy related his UFO experiences and George's response was "Are you sure it [a green glowing UFO with windows hovering over the car] wasn't an angel?"  Jeremy was set for the entire show, but must have reacted during the commercial break because suddenly he was gone. Jeremy says they put him on hold, and he waited 45 minutes for them to connect him again with George before the phone line went dead. Evidently, George had decided that Jeremy was too feisty for him to deal with.  Again, Art Bell HAD CONVERSATIONS.  George Noory asks canned questions.

[PB the Deplorable]

... Art Bell HAD CONVERSATIONS.  George Noory asks canned questions.

I personally don't consider that 'interviewing'. 

They could get a talentless hack to come on and read cue cards.  Oh wait, they did.

[ItsOver]

I'm sure Noory isn't worried about his future of reading cue cards at C2C.  He can always fall back on his singing talent. 

[ChandlersDad]

I'm sure Noory isn't worried about his future of reading cue cards at C2C.  He can always fall back on his singing talent. 

Or his riveting good looks. If all else fails, he could be a gigolo for the geriatric set on cruise ships. I can visualize George reading out Bingo numbers and eyeing the richest looking old ladies ("I make more money in  1 year than you will make in your entire life time").

[Kingdomofnye]

I think the main reason why it has changed is because when someone does or says something phoney, they don't get called on it.

sure the show is about weird stuff, but when it gets just dumb and quirky, nobody can stand a guy that just agrees with everything being said. It makes me cringe. Not to mention his gaffes, and when he was caught lying on air.


http://youtu.be/E8lnXZ2iXtA
I'd rather listen to Art because he stood his ground and protected his show.

Interesting.  Ive seen this idea repeated by many people, that the show, or part of the reason why the show isnt good anymore is that the hosts dont call people on their lies or phony statements.  As I said, I started regularly listening in 2007/2008 but caught a Art show everyonce in awhile prior, but only a handful.  And from my own investigations, it seems Art didnt call people out.  The area 51 caller that seems to maybe be the all time favorite of folks, or Mels hole, Art could have said "this is ridiculous and made up" but he went along with it.  So Im unsure what you all mean when you say Art challenged people/guests/callers.  How and when did he do this?

[Juan]

I don't remember Art regularly calling out guests either.  The thing that I always liked about his interviewing style was that he could draw the entire story out of the guest - frequently getting them to go so far along, it was obviously BS.

[ItsOver]

Remember Art's "Truth or Trash?"  Art could have fun with the show.  Noory shows up for a paycheck and the opportunity to display his idiocy.

[Mind Flayer Monk]

Art understood that the show was like a good 3-person chat and that the host, Art Bell was your "surrogate/proxy/virtual friend".
The guest was the newcomer to challenge the ideas of you and your friend.
You wanted to speak...but didn't have to. Your friend Art would ask the questions you wanted to ask and his steering of the conversation is exactly how you would have done it.

The three of you were sitting around after dinner and having a good conversation.

Like a radio dialogue of Plato... You (as Plato), Art (as Socrates),  the Guest (as Crito/Pythagoras/Polemarchus/Thrasymachus) and the Fools (audience callers).

GN and the producers just don't understand how this is done. The show comes off flat and repetitive.

[ChandlersDad]

Art understood that the show was like a good 3-person chat and that the host, Art Bell was your "surrogate/proxy/virtual friend".
The guest was the newcomer to challenge the ideas of you and your friend.
You wanted to speak...but didn't have to. Your friend Art would ask the questions you wanted to ask and his steering of the conversation is exactly how you would have done it.

The three of you were sitting around after dinner and having a good conversation.

Like a radio dialogue of Plato... You (as Plato), Art (as Socrates),  the Guest (as Crito/Pythagoras/Polemarchus/Thrasymachus) and the Fools (audience callers).

GN and the producers just don't understand how this is done. The show comes off flat and repetitive.

It's like replacing the author Isaac Asimov with the person who wrote the WHERE'S WALDO books!

[ChandlersDad]

Seriously, I listened to Art Bell from 1995 onward. He never went for anyone's throat per se although he banned the mind reader (?).  Art simply asked natural questions that anyone with an ounce of spontaneity and intelligence would ask. However, he always ultimately said that he purposely left it up to his audience to decide for themselves. Where Art and Noory differ is that Noory does not often ask the questions that come naturally to anyone who would be even mildly interested in the topic at hand. I have often heard guests make very provocative statementsd that were just begging if not demanding a follow-up, but Noory would just consult his deck of cue cards for the next question - extremely frustrating. I cannot create a typical exchange, but something like this:

GUEST 1: "I know where Jimmy Hoffa is buried"

NOORY: "So tell me, when did you first become interested in police work?"

GUEST 2: "There is a plot to turn all the power off all over the world, and I know the date!"

NOORY: "Have you read my book about how to be enlightened? It is available on Amazon.com".

GUEST 3: "My father left me a post deposit box filled with documents that prove the Lyndon Johnson arranged the hit on John F. Kennedy. I still have the documents".

NOORY:  "What were you doing when J. F. Kennedy was killed? Everyone remembers what they were doing.  I was throwing spit wads at a girl I liked in Detroit. Hey! Detroit is a great town. Have you ever been there?"

[ItsOver]

You've got a pretty good summary of a typical Nooron non-interview.  It's almost as if the guest isn't even on the air.  I especially love it when Noory cuts-off to a commercial and doesn't come back to something interesting the guest was leading into.  Instead, Noory will traipse off to some other completely, unrelated tangent.  Add attention deficit disorder to all of his issues.

[Morgus]

A real major difference in the show from the best period (mid 90s with Art Bell) and today: spontaneity.
Every night back in the 90s Art's show wasn't planned much in advance, the topic could change the night it aired and often unplanned guests would appear or be contacted on the fly if something came up.
Art would change things up every show and not follow a firm fixed format. Art seemed to want to avoid boredom and not get trapped into a too fixed and 'comfortable' format.

Noory on the other hand uses his staff to plan the schedule weeks in advance and forces a fixed format that he has become confortable with - he even did that on his recent Halloween show by making it follow his regular Friday night format: a first hour guest (not related at all to the ghost to ghost theme) and then some regular guest call-ins intermixed with some pre-screened caller stories, topped off with Noory leaving early and playing a pre-recorded reading of a short story he has played several times before over the past years.

Art would do ghost-to-ghost every year with NO guests and only live callers and in the 90s he did it for FIVE hours, and even two nights in a row around Halloween.

Quite a big difference...

[ItsOver]

It's like the difference between stale Wonder bread and fresh, hot, out-of-the-oven, homemade bread.

[McPhallus]

What does Art and everyone else mean?  How has the show changed since Art left?  I was late to the game and really got into it in 2007/2008 and Art had already left, but my own impression even in these last 5 years, is that the show isnt really about interesting paranormal things like Mels Hole, or that distressed area 51 worker anymore.  It seems like less time is spent with those callers, and the listeners who had such creepy and facinating stories.  And it seems like less and less, the stories and comments listeners DO make arent as compelling as even 5 years ago.  I sort of get the impression during the Art Bell days you'd be guaranteed some creepy and intriguing call, nowadays doesnt seem like it happens often.

Is this accurate?

It's a difference in tone.  In the AB days, you were "taking a ride" with a driver who knew where he was going and had enough respect for his audience to keep things interesting and jettison any guest or caller who were in danger of boring the listeners. 

As someone else pointed out, the paranormal world was a big frontier that hadn't been explored all that much in pop culture at the time.  The whole genre has just aged badly, and these days you can Google many, if not most of Art's guests and learn that they aren't all they were cracked up to be, if not outright con artists. 

These days the show is just a packaged product, a commodity designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator and a marketplace for shilling dubious goods.

[someguy]

listening to george noory after years of listening to art bell is like switching from stephen king books to goosebumps

[coaster]

It's like the difference between stale Wonder bread and fresh, hot, out-of-the-oven, homemade bread.

It's like replacing the author Isaac Asimov with the person who wrote the WHERE'S WALDO books!

listening to george noory after years of listening to art bell is like switching from stephen king books to goosebumps

nice.

[ACE of CLUBS]

Wasn't that Steve Quayle, and he wanted to talk about doomsday stuff and Ian was having none of it?  Ian ended up apoligizing on about the next 3 or 4 shows he did.

I mark that as the end of Ian's good shows (for the most part) - after that he was more detached and more of an ass.

That was the show ...... Ian did a public 'butt-kiss' .......

[Sy-Klone]

It changed.

Best way I can describe it is this way: It sounds a lot more like a produced radio show than it did in the '90s (or even the early '00s).

Here is the crucial difference: For much of his time at the helm, Art basically ran the show by himself out of his house. It was a guy in his house sitting at a microphone with a cigarette burning in the ashtray fielding unscreened calls from late night truck drivers, kooks, and weirdos. He had people actually running his website and I believe handling the broadcast details, but he ran his own board, operated his own phone system, and punched up his own calls, all while cats were running underfoot and his wife was in the next room. It felt like guerrilla radio.

Coast today? Coast under George Noory et al? Have you heard the long list of people George thanks at the end of the show? These people produce the show. It's broadcast from a studio, the calls are screened, someone else is punching them up, someone else is helping make decisions about what to do next, it's all very produced. It feels very produced. And you could tell, toward the end of his guesting stint, that Art was growing very frustrated by that feeling of being controlled, produced, micromanaged.

A show like Coast needs to have some spontaneity. I mean, even things that are not spontaneous (like guest interviews) need that element of spontaneity. That's what Friday night open lines was all about. Throwing open the lines, not knowing what you'll get, dealing with whatever new topics are raised, and following those threads through. Spontaneous abandoning of one topic of conversation to pursue another.

But there's a clear attempt to minimize spontaneous live overnight talk radio at Coast today. Which is why I'm not listening.

[DAE]

I agree with ChandlersDad... listening to Art Bell is like listening to an engaging conversation.  Noory jumps around way too much, takes topics off direction before the topic has gotten started on, and he asks so many stupid questions.  It's almost like he is not really listening or never advances his radio skills.  Other changes in the show:  Coast used to be a leading source for alternative news updates.  Now it barely makes mention of the alt news out there such as new crop circles.  Also, almost all researchers are published authors.  Nothing wrong with selling a product of course, but long gone are the days when Art Bell would get non-published researchers on, such as garage inventors.  Likewise, Coast now tends to stick to the same famous guests of a particular topics, which tends to eliminate a huge vast array of other variables/research with regards to the topic.  Art Bell also used to get into details.  Most Noory shows are like an overview repeat on the topic, versus continued exploration within the details of the topic.   The worst is the fact that Premiere Radio completely chooses to ignore our input.  Our complaining is extremely valuable feedback which could literally transform the show into something remarkable.  But that is the corporate mindset; they know best, and we are all kooks.