If Art Returns, Should He Just Host a Competing Show?

[WOTR]

I can respect that argument, but I can also counter it. "Who would want Art"?
I don't think Art wants anyone wanting/owning Art. I highly doubt he would take any contract Preimere offered...
In the arena of amatuer radio we're talking. On top of being simple and something he has done his whole life, he would have no bosses to deal with. The broadcast (of whatever format) could be streamed over the web.

I believe that you and I are on the same page.  I don't think that he wants or needs a huge commercial show.  He has done that in the past, he is partially retired and I doubt that he wants another gig doing 7 days a week.  A small show once or twice a week on a few stations to start might be exactly what he needs.  It scratches the "itch" of broadcasting but allows him to remain a father, a husband and generally retired.  He retains control of the show, has time to prepare (something that other hosts could learn from) and can enjoy freedom without a call screener in sight.

As for who would hire him... can you imagine running a radio station in a city where a different station has C2Cam and you have... what do you have to compete presently?  Along comes Art and promises you an instant audience (even if his show is not carried in Canada I promise that I will stream any station that he appears on.)  I honestly doubt that as the station manager of a station who rates #20 overnight in your market that you are about to turn him down.  I don't think that Art needs mega $$$ to appear, so you offer him a fair deal and he promises to limit himself to 50 stations nation wide so that you don't have any major competition for his audience and everybody is happy.

Or perhaps he really does just do a weekly show streamed over the net VIA one single station who wants the business.  I doubt that Art wants to work for free or feel like he is being taken advantage of, but it does not sound like it would be about the money but rather that it would be doing something in retirement as a bit of a hobby...

Yeah, I realize that it is all guesses based on very little.  Just little "snippets" and the knowledge that most people don't adjust to a permanent retirement where they neglect hobbies or passions very well.  In addition to that, I can not see Art being forced into such a retirement; there are just too many options open to him.

[onan]

I haven't done any research. I wouldn't know where to go to collect the data. But my hunch is there are thousands of people that would drop c2c in a second if they had the opportunity to hear Art Bell in a current show. I can only speak for me. I would pay $50.00 a month without second thoughts. On the other hand I wouldn't pay 50 cents a month for noory.

I know I am very likely on the extreme end of what one would pay. But I find Bell to be worth it. So in my mind if I am willing to pay a rather high amount and many are willing just to listen I would think that there is some middle ground there. Someone must be looking at the viability to promote an Art Bell program. Or maybe I am just full of it.

[Erin Maas]

It strikes me that the "small station" that Art could begin a limited-range broadcast is located in his backyard:  KNYE.  The station already carries Coast to Coast, but, interestingly, while the station streams the rest of its programming, it does not stream from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. (PT), the hours that it broadcasts C2C.  Why doesn't it, I wonder? 

[Gassy Man]

Art is a genius.  He's the man.  He is the best radio interviewer out there, an erudite but approachable host, and exactly the kind of thoughtful personality that inspires as well as educates.  I'd rather listen to four hours of him farting on the toilet than four hours of George Noory doing his schtick . . . which is essentially farting into a microphone face-first.  If there is anyone who can save overnight talk it is Art Bell, with the wonderful George Knapp covering his flank.                                     

[M Knight]

If Art Bell returned to the airwaves (or internet) with a new show, I have one question.

Would Art still be Art? 

Would he still have "the spark" or that undefinable element that manifested itself as radio genius?  Would the same paradigm exist whereby interesting and creative callers would enable Art Bell's power to entertain?

I sometimes think that what we love about the Art Bell of the past was contingent upon a time when he hit his stride, and the show seemed to fit very well with the culture at the time.  Today, I am not certain an audience could rise above the drivel served up by GN.

[PB the Deplorable]

I wouldn't want Art back on c2c. Screw premrad...

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I like this a lot.

[PB the Deplorable]

If Art Bell returned to the airwaves (or internet) with a new show, I have one question.

Would Art still be Art? 

Would he still have "the spark" or that undefinable element that manifested itself as radio genius?  Would the same paradigm exist whereby interesting and creative callers would enable Art Bell's power to entertain?

I think Art would not do it full time.  Unlike George Noory, he put effort into doing a great show, and with a young family I just don't think he wants to do it to the extent he would need to.

The shows Art did as a part-time fill in weren't great for me.  Since he was just on every once in awhile, it seemed to me he limited himself to those topics he was most interested in.  As it happens, they were the topics I'm personally bored by - predictions, Starfire Tor type stuff, Kaku, the afterlife, 'earth changes', Whitley Streiber. 

It was really great hearing his voice again, getting updates from the Phillipines, but the shows may as well have been arguing about what a zombie would do in a given situation.