What would make Coast to Coast AM better?

[stevesh]

Short of getting rid of Simple George, I think the quickest way to improve C2C would be to hire new call screeners or change the screening policy.

Last night was a good example of what's wrong with what we have now. An interesting guest discussing (among other civil liberty issues) jury nullification. When Ian Punnett went to calls, almost all of the callers just wanted to talk about their personal problems/experiences with the legal system. Very boring, and those sorts of calls don't give the guest anything to work with to provide an answer that helps educate the rest of us.

I can't believe that C2C doesn't get intelligent callers with cogent questions, so it must be screener incompetence or the screening policy is to put the dimwits on the air, which doesn't make sense to me.

[astroguy]

... almost all of the callers just wanted to talk about their personal problems/experiences ...

I agree that this is something that is annoying with C2C these days.  They're talking about the latest guy's "research" into Atlantis and you get a caller saying that they saw a UFO they think was from Atlantis.  Yes, contrived example, but the point remains:  I don't care about your personal story, you should have questions for the guests.  Same thing with every time the psychics are on including McCants.  The rest of your 10+ million listeners don't care what Sue in South Dakota's life path number is.

[Silent]

Last night was a good example of what's wrong with what we have now. An interesting guest discussing (among other civil liberty issues) jury nullification. When Ian Punnett went to calls, almost all of the callers just wanted to talk about their personal problems/experiences with the legal system. Very boring, and those sorts of calls don't give the guest anything to work with to provide an answer that helps educate the rest of us.

I can't believe that C2C doesn't get intelligent callers with cogent questions, so it must be screener incompetence or the screening policy is to put the dimwits on the air, which doesn't make sense to me.

I also have to agree with your excellent observation.  Callers almost always ruin the show for me as I've mentioned in other threads.  I hadn't much considered what callers do that I don't like but your post really hit the nail on the head.  A more recent show that comes to mind is the GPS spying show Ian did with Lauren Weinstein.  The show was very much in the realm of reality concerning confirmable facts, science and technology but so many people were calling with their paranoid stories of the government spying on them and psychic spies.  It's like they can't discern a difference between Weinstein and people like Dames and Hoagland.  And as you said they weren't even calling with qustions.  They just wanted to tell ridiculous, irrelevant stories with no questions for the guest.  I could just tell at certain points the guy was thinking 'WTF?!?'.

In all forms of entertainment whether it's music, movies, tv or radio the performance should strive to end with the audiance wanting more.  With how CTC is constructed the final hour is usually callers.  Anything the show was building on, generating interest, completely unravels when the phone lines open and masses of neurotic schizophrenics realize this is their chance to finally have someone listen to their life story.  Usually by the time a show ends I'm glad it's over.

In the spirit of the thread topic I'd like to give constructive ideas but.....fuck it.  With Ian mostly gone I'm now a former listener anyway.

[Tara]

I recall that Art would often have a policy whereby callers were supposed to ask a question of the guest.  When a simpleton caller attempted to go into a long monologue, Art would interrupt and say "what's your question." 

[999]

I recall that Art would often have a policy whereby callers were supposed to ask a question of the guest.  When a simpleton caller attempted to go into a long monologue, Art would interrupt and say "what's your question."

Exactly; if the host knows what he or she is doing then there is no need for call screeners.

[Stilgar1973]

I love Ian, but I understand him leaving.
George Knapp is growing on me.

The Open Line without call screeners.  DO IT.
They got all these lines, have just one of them be the non-screened lines.  Once or twice an hour the host *announces* he has picked it up.  Fun for all.

The subject I despise the most is financial doom and gloom predictions.  To be blunt, some of us have enough problems with depression in our life as it is, we don't need something like this to switch it on.

Aliens, Time Travel and Physics are my favorite shows. 

Too much doom and gloom.

[Gassy Man]

Let George Knapp be the main host.  Coax Art out of retirement.  Relegate the chimera of Wells/Simone/Strieber/white noise to weekends.  Send George Noory out to pick up dry cleaning, lunch, etc.

Seriously.

Oh, and maybe a guest host spot once a month from an "amateur."  I could do it; I'm sure many of the posters here could too.  I truly don't think anyone could do any worse than what happens.

Oh, and stop aiming the show at the mouth-breathing middle -- let Coast to Coast respect its audience the way The Twilight Zone did, as opposed to the way The Bachelor does now.

If nothing else, more cow bell please.

[HorrorReporter]

I'd love the chance to be able to host the show too. I'd probably screw up majorly no matter how much I prepped.. But I'd live for the chance to be able to intro in while the midnight express played..

[Zenof]

Art coming back in some, way shape or forum
Or
George actually giving a damn and engrossing himself in an intelligent conversation with someone for once
One of these will never happen and we all know it's the latter

[Eddie Coyle]

Art coming back in some, way shape or forum
Or
George actually giving a damn and engrossing himself in an intelligent conversation with someone for once
One of these will never happen and we all know it's the latter

Art is home...and it ain't on the radio. Hasn't been for a very long time.

[b_dubb]

Q) What would make Coast to Coast AM better?

A) A bullet to the head

[WOTR]

Turmeric.  Yes, 5 tablespoons of turmeric per day until the cancer is driven out and C2C returns to a nice alkaline, tumor free existence.

[Marc.Knight]

Embrace the truth: rename the show "Suck to Suck AM with George Noory".

At least we'd all be on the same page.

[BobGrau]

Rename it "Coast to Edge of the Flat Earth AM"

[GuerrillaUnReal]

Make Knapp the regular Sunday host. At this point Noory is the franchise and C2C is appealing to a different demographic than when it started. We're the refugees who don't fit into Premiere's agenda. And obviously they're smart because we're not the feebled minded who are going to buy the shoddy books and snake oil. So at this point the most I can hope for is one awesome night a week. Knapp is clearly the best host and embodies the spirit of the C2C we love. Give him one night a week, let him develop even more of a following and bring back the C2C refugees. And ask him to do a special whistle blower line ala old school C2C one night.

[BobGrau]

Problem is, Knapp already has a real job.
Why would he want to continue to be associated with the embarresment that C2C has become? I'd imagine at this stage he is simply waiting for his contract to run out.

[Morgus]

Problem is, Knapp already has a real job.

thats correct. Knapp has said many times he has his full time Vegas TV reporter job so he can't handle more than the two Sundays/month regularly.
He can't do it every weekend or during the week other than an infrequent one night Friday fill-in once in a while.
Its the same with Ian who has his regular weekday local radio job.

Noory apparently was the only one who had enough time on his hands to host all weekdays thru the entire year and not even use his entire 3 weeks per year vacation? 

[Sardondi]

"What would make Coast to Coast AM better? "

Maybe cutting George Noory back a little bit to where he hosts only in the past, effective as soon as possible.

[kf5iwe]

 I got circumsized on feb 7. Layed here for 10 days on strong narcotics. C2C sounded good even George!! But as I was communing with MY Oracles, I realized who the next permanent host will be: ALEX JONES!!!! Bad narcotics! BAD BAD

[Avi]

I got circumsized on feb 7. Layed here for 10 days on strong narcotics. C2C sounded good even George!! But as I was communing with MY Oracles, I realized who the next permanent host will be: ALEX JONES!!!! Bad narcotics! BAD BAD

Why did you do such a thing? I mean, I am all for circumcision, but...

[BobGrau]

I got circumsized on feb 7. Layed here for 10 days on strong narcotics.

that was one hell of a valentine's party, wasn't it?

[kf5iwe]

Dr. said it was needed. But the scar does make it look like a one eyed cyclops with a smile. The Ladies love it, I have only been slapped 3 times when I offer to show it to them.
But I am afraid that the new host will be Alex Jones. Thats what my oracles told me. He was here last week staying in Baton rouge while he was going to Orlando. And yes I am a fan of AJ.

[11angeleyes11]

George can sing the bumpers.  I come to that conclusion after watching his first music video at the Ritz Carlton on UTube. 
It can be analogized to heavenly celestrial harmony, the voice of an angel.  Of course, it has to be a male angel. 

[JohnnyAqua]

Art put a lot into the show, he studied each topic, I get the feeling George has people do that for him and he is just a mouthpiece. He don't put nothing into it so that is why he sounds like a fool.
He got to show some interest. I mean he is reading from cue cards, and it shows.

[Oversoul]

I think 7 days a week is still viable. But clear channel, premier radio have completely lost the map.

The seven days a week show frequency is okay. 

But the show needs new blood, new life:  new hosts and faces that have a living, breathing vision of what C2C is about, of its investigative, journalistic, editorial, informational, instructive, definitive and visionary mission and purpose (not mere entertainers acting as hosts); and a NEW MIND -- an enlightenend one that understands postmodernity, at the least, one that can see the postmodern world of humanity at the close of the last century and well into (and beyond) the 21st century -- beyond the hype and vogue of 2012 and the human condition.   

As of the moment, C2C is functioning as a relic of the 20th century.  The fear mongering and public manipulation, which was typical of the Cold War era and the terrorist era which succeeded it, are still around and kicking in the show.  Just listen to the ads alone.  So is the fundamentalism being expressed through the religious, social and cultural biases of the show hosts.  The show and its hosts may ride on the tailcoats of groundbreaking 21st century scientific and technological innovations and breakthroughs, but they have not grasped the significance of those innovations and their impact on humanity and the emerging enlightened world or social order (I'm not referring to the illuminati or NWO of conspiracy theorists.).  Look at the conservatism of the hosts who are frozen back in time with the 20th century mindset they grew up in.

Not long ago I e-mailed John Wells (an occasional guest host of C2C) that the show and he were "reactionary AND mainstream with a fringe covering of the unconventional.  The show's hosts convey this through their mindset and speech, you (Wells) included.  I have yet to see the show as an agency or catalyst for serious socio-political transformation at the grass roots level."   He replied that he had to play the ratings game for the show.  What more need I say?

[Oversoul]

Turmeric.  Yes, 5 tablespoons of turmeric per day until the cancer is driven out and C2C returns to a nice alkaline, tumor free existence.

How about colonic cleansing for Noory?  Or maybe a brain transplant for him -- from a donor parrot, dolphin, or chimp?

[PB the Deplorable]

... Not long ago I e-mailed John Wells (an occasional guest host of C2C) that the show and he were "reactionary AND mainstream with a fringe covering of the unconventional.  The show's hosts convey this through their mindset and speech, you (Wells) included.  I have yet to see the show as an agency or catalyst for serious socio-political transformation at the grass roots level."   He replied that he had to play the ratings game for the show.  What more need I say?

Ratings can't matter to PremRat.  If it were a ratings driven show, Noory either would have never been more than an occasional fill in, or fired long ago.  And they would have found better fill ins than Ian Punnett and George Knapp, and cut them loose at some point as well.

[b_dubb]

Coast needs a hard reboot. But it may be too late even for that

[Sleepwalker]

Competition is the only solution.  Imagine what would happen if a new "Art Bell Show" suddenly appeared in the same time slot on another radio network.  Coast to Coast would fade to black in no time.

[Oversoul]

We will have Noory for the foreseeable future followed by another complete failure 5 nights a week.

You forget:  It's 2012!  It could as well be the "end times" for Noory, too.  Now, if only the Mayan calendar had specified that.  Hey, maybe it did.