Art Bell Quits Dark Matter

[SciFiAuthor]

I think you hit the nail on the head here.  Even with full access to all the shows SXM has, $15 is WAY to much for radio, especially considering how much (audio & visual) content (pirated or otherwise) you can get for free on Youtube, or even on paid services like Netflix for less than $10 a month.

It would be nice, from my perspective, if SXM had better shows. Most of it is fluff BS. Improving that would make it more worth it, but without AB it's not worth it at all. And if they can't give us a reliable stream, then what good is the service? Look, if the radio talk show hosts can give us reliable streams, which they all do, including Noory for cents LESS per day, then SXM can do it. Why aren't they?

Write them and bitch like there is no tomorrow. This can be turned around.

[popple]

If that email was from Art, it does look like its over!! Art is ridiculous to demand a year of free streaming when sirius could possibly fix the "problem" in a few days!!

Fix it, and Art does a FREE show on Fridays. FREE FRIDAY OPEN LINES! Streamed through artbell.com He said a free show would bring in more callers right? 

IDK I'm just grasping at things.

[FightTheFuture]

*** finally caught up with this thread.. ***

Jesus Christ (JC!),  listen to how passionate all of you are about Art.  You would not be so angry with him if you didn't love him to pieces.   The fat lady hasn't sung yet folks.   Welcome to the ride!

I'm not angry at all. I knew he'd quit. Art is a  quitter; that's what he does.

I  started listening to Art 25 years ago. He was cutting edge then. Exciting. Now, he's just a bitter old diva, clinging to  long past glory.

Stick a fork in him; he's done.

[steelbot]

Geez, sorry bro, we just missed seeing you as you are normally here. Was wondering what you thought, I guess we now know.

I emailed Art Keith and Paul, got answers from each one, and the obligatory response from art - revised my emails, nothing but dead air now on the matter.  I feel my expressed views on the topic could be read in my email that is on this thread using the...http://bellgab.com/index.php?action=search...

[ItsOver]

Way to alienate truck drivers. A shame they are being used as an excuse. :
I swear, if I have to read the word "petition" again..

I don't remember this being a big problem when he was doing C2C and truckers were calling in.  Just another excuse from a repeat quitter.

[Heather Wade]

what do ya all want from me? A replay of an old and quite frankly un entertaining guestisode?  nah - i've got other things to worry about in the world that my favorite b-casters walking away again...and again... that's life folks - we'll adapt and move on

Ha haa, no, just wondering about you.   

[shell88]

[attachimg=1]

lol

[HumanBeing]

I understand. It's really hard and disappointing. I listened to Art Bells old shows and just reminiscened the times when I was young and the world was still full of mystery and wonder, before I experienced hard times.  You?

Me too.

I also am bummed because I am interested in learning about all these so called "fringe" topics and really broadening my view on the world and universe.
Art brought many wonderful and intriguing guests on that forced me think and be more introspective. He introduced millions of people to topics they would never have been familiar with. Also he engaged the guests and sometimes played the devil's advocate purely to bring out the best of the discussion.
So yeah it sucks. I'm pissed.

I don't like the game he's playing where he appears to be using his most faithful listeners who appreciate him as a pawn in this whole SiriusXM thing.
These are mostly the same listeners who have his back and defend him just as intensely. Now he's off in a corner and communicating by little emails like a coward.
It would have been more effective to go on the radio and talk about this. Have Graham Hancock on as was intended. I find Graham to one of the most interesting guests he has ever had on. What a show to go out on... or at least what a show to use as as another piece on his twisted chess board. Probably would have pulled on more heart strings and gotten a even stronger response.

Art may even win yet. It is just his style of play that is very disturbing. It all seems very sleazy and greasy. Never saw Art to be that way until now and it is weird. 

[dortmunder]

I thought the same thing, i routinely drive 70mph + on the highway and have clear, pleasant conversations with friends and loved ones 2000 miles away!!

LOL! Oh, you're THAT guy!!! Slow down and get off the damned phone!!!

[SciFiAuthor]

Way to alienate truck drivers. A shame they are being used as an excuse. :
I swear, if I have to read the word "petition" again..

Well fuck, bitch about everything in life then. You can be negative and send it to the trash heap and move your sights back to complaining about Noory, or you can try to save it. I'd say it's constructive to try to save it. Anything else is just wasting time.

[steelbot]

http://bellgab.com/index.php?topic=5069.msg183292#msg183292 <-My email for the non readers! =)

[malachi.martini]

From Art:

All I wanted was streaming that worked.

What a heaping pile of bullshit, what a lousy out he's leveraged.  I feel sorry for the poor fucks that signed up for a year and bought radios on account of this serial flake, this from a life long fan.  Say what you will about Snoory (his show is near unlistenable), he'd never do this to his audience.

Here's to hoping someone will come along, someone as engaging and actually deserving of an audience. 

[shell88]

This all sure happened rather rapidly.  Looking at Mr. Bell's history of "retirements," I can't help but think the thrill of being back on the air wore off rapidly and he was just looking for an out, again.  He saw it and he took it.  I certainly don't blame Sirius for the demise of Dark Matter.

Yes. The man is as deep as a piece of cellophane wrap.

[HumanBeing]

Yeah. I play minecraft a lot. I would be playing now if I wasn't doing this.

hehe me too.
When I sleep I have my automatic fish farm running  weeeeeee! haha Talk about a load of enchanted bows I have now.. never run out lol
Funny if we get a BellGab server on the go hahaha
I usually play Minecraft and listen to Art the same time 
Now he has gone and fuked that all up! 

[steelbot]

Does siriusXM renew their just disbanded Coast 2 Coast coverage?...or does SNooray get the gig of hosting Dark Matter...BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

[popple]

I don't remember this being a big problem when he was doing C2C and truckers were calling in.  Just another excuse from a repeat quitter.

Art said on DM that the quality of cellphones has gone down. "Don't you remember when you could hear a pin drop on the other end?"

[SciFiAuthor]

What a heaping pile of bullshit, what a lousy out he's leveraged.  I feel sorry for the poor fucks that signed up for a year and bought radios on account of this serial flake, this from a life long fan.  Say what you will about Snoory (his show is near unlistenable), he'd never do this to his audience.

Here's to hoping someone will come along, someone as engaging and actually deserving of an audience.

It's no out. He'd be back in a minute if SXM gave him reliable streaming so he could get decent callers.

[ajiav]

From Art:

Michael,

I saw a post recently on Bell Gab that said the Spooky Matter show was the weakest ever. I agree, and it would be downhill from there under
the current situation. I thought it was entirely reasonable to ask for a Year to try and reach the users who had tried the 30 day trial and
threw up their hands and left. All I wanted was streaming that worked. The success of my original show and the new show depended
on callers, many of my best shows were as a result of open lines. Yes I could fill the lines with truckers, bless their hearts, but I could not
have made the kind of show that you and all the other callers had a right to expect. Cell phones just do not work well going down the street
at 70 MPH.

I had hundreds of email's from people who had left because of a stream that kept cutting out, that was my base and all I wanted was to
keep that group, so I asked for free streaming for a Year or until they could fix the problem, they said no, so rather than have a show go
downhill I chose to end it. Doing a quality program is very important to me. I understand some people will hate my guts for it but sometimes
that is what we buy with our decisions. I made this choice for the show, not me. I love doing the show but not in a half ass way.

Is it a 100% done deal? As it sits, yes. It is my position that if they let me stream until the problems are fixed I would be back at the mike in a second
but I think they will not do so. That is the situation in a nutshell. BTW my Producer agrees as does my friend Bob Crane who saw his sales start
well, get better, then sharply decline as people got frustrated and dropped.

                                                                                                                                                 Art

That's a lot of projection on the basis of six weeks. 

Ten years gone and shifting to a pay service --- sure, there will be an initial bump due to the excitement --- but after things settle it is ultimately a new distribution model and requires adjusting, it won't be like it was.  Can't force the old expectations into the new format.  Takes time to rebuild.  In the meantime, had freedom to experiment, a guaranteed core audience like others have pointed out.  All the tools needed to make it into something.

Feels like Art gave up and is rationalizing it.  Does someone open a restaurant, have a good opening week when the buzz is new, then shut down a month later after the inevitable drop off?

[Étouffée]

Fix it, and Art does a FREE show on Fridays. FREE FRIDAY OPEN LINES! Streamed through artbell.com He said a free show would bring in more callers right? 

IDK I'm just grasping at things.

Popple, you might be in the "bargaining" stage of grief here!

(I'm still at No. 2)

[Agent : Orange]

Right now I'm listening to Howard Stern, who is currently playing audio of a retard getting a lap dance. With this to look forward to at least my SiriusXM subscription won't go to waste.

[Spinner]

I don't know how many people here are twitter savvy, but if you do a search for @sirisuxm and check the "@mentions" within the past few house at leastr 80 percent of them are about Art Bell. I can't imagine any of the crappy celebrities like Jamie Foxx or Oprah have meant that much to Sirius. Gee, imagine listeners actually wanting to hear RADIO HOSTS. They threw millions at celebrities to do losing channels on Sirius, but they can't accommodate a curmudgeonly radio LEGEND who has an idea to make the show more accessible to the largest number of listeners?

Whatever. There are definitely no winners here.

[Agent : Orange]

Does siriusXM renew their just disbanded Coast 2 Coast coverage?...or does SNooray get the gig of hosting Dark Matter...BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

He gets it, folks

[Desmond]

I enjoy listening to old archived AB shows, and was very excited he was coming back to do Dark Matter.  I am a fan, not as emotionally invested as many on here, but I did think he was a talented and interesting interviewer.


I reactivated my SXM account which had been dormant for 3 yrs, and added online streaming, total cost was around $52 for 6 months. (Sirius promo of $25 for 6 months and streaming add on.)


I listened mostly via Android app on smartphone and SXM stream on my PC.  I never had one dropped moment or error.  Not once.  Now I did not listen live to every show, but when I did, no problem whatsoever.  I was pleasantly surprised by the Android app, it worked great for me.


The cell phone / truckers excuse is lame.  It's a satellite radio company that also does internet... and for many no internet issues.   The quality of the caller's phone connections was not a problem that I noticed... a couple callers had bad connections or you could tell their battery was getting low and audio clipped a bit... not an annoying issue I ever heard anyone complaining about on here.


Art states that many took advantage of the 30 day trial and did not subscribe.  Art, could it be that the show wasn't appealing enough for the curious to pay for once the free trial expired?   My two main gripes about the show were weak guests, and the ridiculous phone in system that drops you after a few rings.  If its a caller driven show, make it caller friendly to connect.


I wanted to love Dark Matter, and I did enjoy it to a certain degree, and enjoyed the live listening threads on here.  But it did not meet my expectations... Art was sharp and talented, but they should have gotten more contemporary and interesting guests to generate buzz.  If he does something online I would probably check it out, I'm disappointed by how he has handled this and don't think he is being totally honest with us.

[ItsOver]

Art said on DM that the quality of cellphones has gone down. "Don't you remember when you could hear a pin drop on the other end?"

Not on any cellphone I've ever had over the years.    I know Art's complained about cellphones forever. 

[Araxen]

I've never had problems with SiriusXM's stream on my Android phone or via their website. The On Demand stuff has worked flawless for me too. The app is a little clunky though but it hasn't failed to work for me.

[SciFiAuthor]

Not on any cellphone I've ever had over the years.    I know Art's complained about cellphones forever.

You can hear the cellphone audio and how it sucks on the show. It clearly did.

[area51drone]

Right now I'm listening to Howard Stern, who is currently playing audio of a retard getting a lap dance. With this to look forward to at least my SiriusXM subscription won't go to waste.

   Apparently even Stern can sink to new lows.  Wow.  Just wow.  I swear I should just post pictures of kitties and puppies and the world will watch.

[FightTheFuture]

He should have stuck with C2C.

That's the bottomline.

[malachi.martini]

It's no out. He'd be back in a minute if SXM gave him reliable streaming so he could get decent callers.

Rubbish, "decent" callers could Skype him with amazing clarity, even with a broken stream.  To blame the quality of callers is such a dick move, and plainly an out.

[area51drone]

You can hear the cellphone audio and how it sucks on the show. It clearly did.

Indeed.   And Art (or whomever said it) is right, cell phones have gotten worse.

If you're in Washington State and reading this, tune to 90.3.  You just might hear Art.