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Art Bell Quits Dark Matter

Started by DesertFox, November 01, 2013, 08:13:24 AM

DesertFox

This free streaming request/demand from Art to Sirius almost sounds like Art is looking for an excuse to quit again. 

Art is flighty, as we know...I love Art but i'm very skeptical.   What do you think?

Not quit, necessarily, but it wouldn't shock me if he is using this as a way to get out of his SiriusXM deal and do something online-only.

I just can't fathom them offering Art's show for free in way, shape, or form. It goes against the entire reason for the company's existence - to generate revenue by having unique, exclusive content. This will cause them to generate less revenue (via subscribers cancelling since they could now listen for free). Makes no business sense.

Considering how many of Art's listeners are truckers, this might be a pretty bad decision all around.

Quote from: NefariousBanana on November 01, 2013, 09:28:23 AM
Considering how many of Art's listeners are truckers, this might be a pretty bad decision all around.

Agreed. Art will have far less listeners if he goes online-only through his website, and will almost completely cut out people who listen in their cars.

aldousburbank

It's fun. Know why?  He's effing with people. I like it.

DesertFox

Quote from: aldousburbank on November 01, 2013, 10:24:27 AM
It's fun. Know why?  He's effing with people. I like it.



So you'd like it if he effed with his fans and quit suddenly again?  Or do you think this is much ado about nothing--just Art being a drama queen?

aldousburbank

I think Art is playing chess/poker and we do not see the whole board/hand.

DesertFox

Maybe.  Not sure though--Art hasn't always been reliable. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Foodlion


DesertFox

Quote from: Foodlion on November 01, 2013, 10:38:16 AM
When did he (Art) mention this?



At the very end of the Spooky Matter show.

Foodlion

Quote from: DesertFox on November 01, 2013, 10:40:41 AM


At the very end of the Spooky Matter show.
Sorry I should've checked first, but thanks for the heads up. I just saw it on his webpage. I had to jet last night before the end. 

I think he is just telling XM to F*k off and don't pester his loyal fans who someones have no choice but to take stream. Not to mention nobody overseas can legitly get XM unless they run loops around the setup.

I don't think there is a hidden motive behind any of this.

Art said he came back with the understanding he could do things his way and he's been making a few requests that benefit his audience as the show gets under way.

steelbot

He also stated that the "product" would be an evolving creature! - so I think this is a move in that direction....here's an analogy no one has put forth yet...HuluPlus...?

Why would anyone become a HuluPlus member vs the standard member?  People can get the same content, and without commercial interruptions, but still use the site a lot, and are also paying customers....with being a paying customer, you STILL get the commercials.... The free model is not as bad as some are making it out to be.  There isn't a technological way Art or Sirius can use to prevent the type of exposure his show gets on the net-presence.  I think Art is trying to show Sirius and his audience base, that he gets it, folks all over the world (especially from Art's historical past) like to listen to his shows.  And by offering that show to more people, and in a form that 'could' lead to more revenue for them in the long run why not take a shot at it.  He is ONLY asking for live show control over giving it away via the internet.  He didn't ask for a syndication deal with terrestrial radio networks.  This model has some merits, and he's asking Sirius to offer up something unique to his product.  I find it great! 

To those saying they would dump Sirius if Art did this I get it, but feel that being so bold in your opinion could hurt the decision they have to make.  If there is no prospect of getting future business this is dead in the water.  By choosing, NOT to continue to support Sirius, you are in a way not supporting Art's paycheck, therefore not really supportive of Art, only happy that you can get it for free. 

Now yes, I offer up a stream for some folks overseas, and yes, I do have access to a subscription that is not my own, but I fully intend to subscribe when I am able to.  I do not like the road this might go down if folks decide that the Sirius subscription is worthless now.  Art's show being available for on-demand is awesome, and i do like a handful of the other stations/categories offered. 

Please lets just wait till Monday as this speculation will give us all ulcers if we don't!

Job

Quote from: aldousburbank on November 01, 2013, 10:32:57 AM
I think Art is playing chess/poker and we do not see the whole board/hand.
That's what makes it so much fun to speculate.  It is like the radio show.  Not enough data so the mind can run wild.  If the live discussion thread  is true that there is no longer a "non-compete" contract in force...wow, a lot of possibilities there.

Meanandnasty

Reading through the posts and the forum, there are many stressed gabbers.  Relax! Drink the Kookade and tune in to Coast for the next three days. 

We can all enjoy Art's rebellious, independent nature (I know I do), but I think what he is asking of SiriusXM is completely unreasonable. They are what they are - a for-profit, premium-content, subscription-based radio service. They make their money and carve out their market share by having unique, exclusive content.

What business sense would it make for them to blow up their entire model and allow ArtBell.com to siphon off listeners and reduce their subscriber base? If Art is frustrated about a smaller pool of listeners/callers, he should have taken one of the terrestrial networks' offers. If he wants to do a free streaming show, that's what he should have done instead of Dark Matter. For better or worse, he took SiriusXM's offer to do an exclusive program on their subscription-based satellite AND internet radio service.

Again don't misread me here - I LOVE listening to Art and have listened to every Dark Matter show. I just don't get what is going through his mind on this one, from a practical standpoint.

dortmunder

I wonder how many people are actually able to listen live every night. We're a pretty select group of listeners here on this forum and I hope we don't represent his entire listenership. Art's proposing that the show be streamed live through his website, which would also make it available worldwide. But those who can't listen live will still need to go through Sirius to hear the On Demand shows. I think Art realized pretty early on that even though Sirius provides a better quality listening experience than terrestrial radio, it would still keep his audience pretty limited. Think of all the countries that would have access to the show through his website. The audience would increase exponentially. And even though this may not seem lucrative for Sirius in the short term, it might do wonders for their revenue in the long term as those who will discover/rediscover Art across the globe may inevitably get hooked and choose to turn to Sirius for broader access to DM. I hope the execs over there can see that far ahead. Remember, Art was able to grow his exposure in the past by twisting the arm of executives. He's usually won. I think he might win this one too. 

Quote from: dortmunder on November 01, 2013, 01:01:14 PM
I wonder how many people are actually able to listen live every night. We're a pretty select group of listeners here on this forum and I hope we don't represent his entire listenership. Art's proposing that the show be streamed live through his website, which would also make it available worldwide. But those who can't listen live will still need to go through Sirius to hear the On Demand shows. I think Art realized pretty early on that even though Sirius provides a better quality listening experience than terrestrial radio, it would still keep his audience pretty limited. Think of all the countries that would have access to the show through his website. The audience would increase exponentially. And even though this may not seem lucrative for Sirius in the short term, it might do wonders for their revenue in the long term as those who will discover/rediscover Art across the globe may inevitably get hooked and choose to turn to Sirius for broader access to DM. I hope the execs over there can see that far ahead. Remember, Art was able to grow his exposure in the past by twisting the arm of executives. He's usually won. I think he might win this one too.

I just don't see the people who listen live on Art's website making the decision to pay for the same thing. Those people who listen for free on ArtBell.com will likely look to youtube for archives (especially after Art told everybody about that on-air last night) or record the show themselves with programs like Audacity or hardware like the CC Witness Plus (which Art advertises on the show). If you go back and read the Time Magazine article, it's pretty clear that SiriusXM signed Art to monetize his large and loyal listenership. A free stream on ArtBell.com does not fit that model in any way, shape, or form.

Another thought - if this gets ugly and Art quits SiriusXM, he will need to get a whole new broadcasting setup and equipment to do an internet-only show. SiriusXM spent their own time/money to build out Art's studio, can't imagine they would let him keep it for a competing show.

shell88

Art and team wouldn't walk into this blindfolded. I don't see him as a quitter, quite the opposite.
He's just throwing his substantial weight around and testing the waters. He's not an idiot.

I believe both Sirius\XM and Art Bell are both relieved and blown away by the response to this show.  Certainly I believe the demand for this show from fans around the world was not something they were counting on.  Since Art's past regular C2C days, the internet and re-broadcast of Art's old shows have established a solid and large international fan base.

I believe one of two things:

1. Art Bell ultimately wants to break from Sirius/XM.  Art  sees how big his domestic and international fan base is and has realized that he can reach many many more people by streaming from his website and can make much more money from advertising to an international audience.  Also hurting C2C more in the process.

2.  Sirius/XM was not prepared for the international appeal and currently have no way to benefit from such a huge base.  By making it look like Art demanded this, they get to experiment with this delivery method without hearing cries of foul from others on the Sirius roster.  As a Howard Stern fan as well, I can tell you that Howard re-signed with Sirius last year and has a little more than 2 years remaining on his contract.  Howard has hinted that he is looking into other broadcast methods.  Howard and Sirius are not on the best of terms over the terms and nonpayment of bonuses form his last contract.  I believe Sirius realizes there is a strong possibility that Howard may eventually go to a website podcast delivery method.  Also, Howard has a strong international base as well.  By doing this with Art, they get to test this method, work out the bugs, and reach an international audience which means they can then sell commercial time based on a delivery to an international audience.  Yes, they could lose the odd subscriber, but they can potentially make more money by reaching an international audience.  They also get to hurt C2C more and pull away more fans and advertisers.

Either way .. :)

MV/Liberace!

Quote from: dortmunder on November 01, 2013, 01:01:14 PM
I wonder how many people are actually able to listen live every night. We're a pretty select group of listeners here on this forum and I hope we don't represent his entire listenership. Art's proposing that the show be streamed live through his website, which would also make it available worldwide. But those who can't listen live will still need to go through Sirius to hear the On Demand shows. I think Art realized pretty early on that even though Sirius provides a better quality listening experience than terrestrial radio, it would still keep his audience pretty limited. Think of all the countries that would have access to the show through his website. The audience would increase exponentially. And even though this may not seem lucrative for Sirius in the short term, it might do wonders for their revenue in the long term as those who will discover/rediscover Art across the globe may inevitably get hooked and choose to turn to Sirius for broader access to DM. I hope the execs over there can see that far ahead. Remember, Art was able to grow his exposure in the past by twisting the arm of executives. He's usually won. I think he might win this one too.

agreed on all points.  and yeah, i used to work in radio.  i forgot to answer that question from you in another thread.

coaster

Seems like Sirius would lose a ton of money if they did what Art wanted.

MV/Liberace!

i'm a good example of someone who would not dump sirius if art streamed online.  first, i usually am unable to sit and listen to the whole show live.  i need the archive.  second, there's plenty of other content on sirius i want to hear, like fox news, for example.  having that on sirius prevents me having to subscribe to cable tv service (not that i would, anyway).

dortmunder

Quote from: MV on November 01, 2013, 01:47:48 PM
agreed on all points.  and yeah, i used to work in radio.  i forgot to answer that question from you in another thread.

Oh cool! I thought so. You seemed pretty comfortable at the mic :-)

It comes off to me as though Art didn't (doesn't?) fully understanding what he was getting himself into with SiriusXM. He was rightfully thrilled with the creative control and relative lack of commercials that they were providing him, but now seems unwilling to work within the business model that every other host/show on the service works within. I listen to several other talk shows on SiriusXM and it doesn't seem like having a variety of callers is an issue at all, by the way.

I mean, if he can pull this off then more power to him. I'm sure every other host on SiriusXM would be pounding down the walls of their offices to be the next ones to expand their audience similarly. I just don't see, tangibly from a business perspective, what SiriusXM would have to gain from Art Bell completely blowing up their business model. Again, people listening for free will find other free methods to listen to old/archived shows. I would be shocked if even one-tenth of one percent of the ArtBell.com free listeners ever get converted into paying subscribers.

Presumably, ArtBell.com listeners would be the hardest of the hardcore Art Bell fans. The entire reason SiriusXM signed Art Bell is to get his large group of hardcore fans to become paying subscribers because of Art's show, in hopes they would enjoy their other programming as well and stick around (and spend the extra $3.99 a month to listen online). Offering a free stream for these listeners basically guarantees that SiriusXM doesn't get their money.

The only ways this could work is if the streaming option on ArtBell.com isn't free - let's say it's $4.99 a month and SiriusXM gets $4 a month. MAYBE they consider it to keep Art happy. But FREE? I just don't see it.

If Art's show was more rigidly structured in a "the first two hours are call-ins and the last two hours are guests without any callers" type of format, maybe making those first two hours free could work. But that is clearly not what Art has in mind, so that too is a moot point.

Again, I just struggle to see where any of this benefits SiriusXM. We shall see.


steelbot

Quote from: DontFearTheReaper on November 01, 2013, 01:26:12 PM
Another thought - if this gets ugly and Art quits SiriusXM, he will need to get a whole new broadcasting setup and equipment to do an internet-only show. SiriusXM spent their own time/money to build out Art's studio, can't imagine they would let him keep it for a competing show.
My only point of contention in your statement is that Art has had his OWN studio for years, they merely gave him the operational equipment necessary to connect into their up/downstream for the relay to the sirius satelites.  He has his own facility with equipment necessary to stream a show.  He would need the bandwith/rebroadcast to the net space for something that could be even larger than he is forcasting.

Quote from: coaster on November 01, 2013, 01:55:18 PM
Seems like Sirius would lose a ton of money if they did what Art wanted.

Exactly. They have bent over backwards to accommodate Art so far by making whatever changes he has asked (changing commercial content after listeners were offended, improving audio quality after he asked them to, changing the desktop player's timeout from 90 minutes to 4 hours, etc.), but allowing him to broadcast the show for free has to be considered lunacy from their perspective.

Quote from: steelbot on November 01, 2013, 02:09:42 PM
My only point of contention in your statement is that Art has had his OWN studio for years, they merely gave him the operational equipment necessary to connect into their up/downstream for the relay to the sirius satelites.  He has his own facility with equipment necessary to stream a show.  He would need the bandwith/rebroadcast to the net space for something that could be even larger than he is forcasting.

Oh definitely, I agree. Although, without any manner of knowing for sure, I wonder how much all that equipment was subsidized and/or setup by his previous networks. I mean, he'll obviously figure out a way to do a show if he really wants to. It would just make for an interesting/uncomfortable situation if SiriusXM demanded that he turn over the equipment they set up for him.

Quote from: MV on November 01, 2013, 01:57:16 PM
i'm a good example of someone who would not dump sirius if art streamed online.  first, i usually am unable to sit and listen to the whole show live.  i need the archive.  second, there's plenty of other content on sirius i want to hear, like fox news, for example.  having that on sirius prevents me having to subscribe to cable tv service (not that i would, anyway).

Agreed. I fall into the same boat - with my commute (70 mile roundtrip every day), I would lose my mind without SiriusXM. NHL Network Radio and E Street Radio along are worth my monthly subscription fee. Them adding Art basically made it the perfect entertainment option for me.

I just think that SiriusXM would be pretty darn concerned about losing the hardcore Art Bell fan who is subscribing solely or mostly because Art is on. If they lose them, the whole point of bringing in Art in the first place is lost.

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