Midnight In The Desert

[SciFiAuthor]

Yep. He does indeed sell lunar (and Martian) meteorites.

http://www.spacerocksuk.com/lunarmars.html

[21st Century Man]

Me too. I was so so about it especially the conspiracy theory part but he's been really good.  Notice how Dave also knows when to stay quiet and let the old boy tell his tales?

Yes indeed.  No endless asides from the host that drone on like a certain other host.

[SciFiAuthor]

Oh. I thought you had smoked too many doobies with Hoagland.

I wish. I'm out.

[TigerLily]

I missed it. I’ll listen tomorrow because I am a loyal subscriber. Only $4.99 per month and I get access to all of the archives going all the way back to Art Bell.

Gee whiz, Grav. Me too! Such a deal including Art's shows too. Cost of one Starbucks and you get all this quality entertainment any time you want

[Corona Kitty]

Ring ring ring..... No answer..... :3

[Lilith]

Heather seems to actually believe this BS when she reads it. 

BWAHAHAHAHA

[SciFiAuthor]

Yes indeed.  No endless asides from the host that drone on like a certain other host.

Yeah, Dave's a pro interviewer. Knows when to keep quiet and when to prod.

[Lilith]

If I was Heather, I would ask them to change that....

[SpookyTim]

Heather seems to actually believe this BS when she reads it. 

BWAHAHAHAHA

I can't believe these people believe it when they write it.

Hi Paul.

[SpookyTim]

"I've got this great big package" hahaha

Yes, I'm 12 years old.

Hi Paul.

[Doomed]

I enjoyed the show Dave. Nice work.

[MV/Liberace!]

Art was first? Has she never heard of Long John Nebel? Art basically stole his schtick.

With a touch of Herb Jepko.

Many apologies for not seeing this sooner-- still recovering from the flu/pneumonia.

I will hold you to your word about not sharing my thoughts-- or at the very least not sharing them unless you run across attribution that doesn't lead back to me.  Too many people inside the industry would know from whence most of this comes.  Not sure how much you know about the inner workings of radio, so if I expound of points obvious to you, forgive me.

Randy Michaels at Jacor wanted a syndication division,  He ultimately bought Premiere, and then in 1998 bought Coast to Coast.    I laughed at the press release with Randy saying he'd been a long time fan of the show.  Randy in 1997 had never heard the show--  I know because we were on the phone while I was driving to LA listening to Art while I was on I-10 in Arizona.   I was telling Randy about "Mel's Hole".  He got excited and said 'let's go find it!'  I had to assure him it was nowhere to be found, this being an Art Bell caller.   He confided that while he'd certainly heard of the show, he'd never actually heard it for himself.

So Randy bought the show and put it under the Premiere banner.  I doubt Premiere had a clue about how the show made money.  Let me digress further and say that when Herb Jepko's wildly successful overnight show, "The Nitecaps" was bought by Mutual in 1976; the deal was that Herb would pay the landline cost of transmission from Salt Lake City to the network's DC headquarters and pay the salary of an hourly newsman.  Mutual, for it's part would clear stations and sell time.    Herb was grossing over $2 million before this deal. Within 18 months he was bankrupt.   

Networks sell on a CPM model (cost per thousand listeners) but head count is only viable in the day. Many national advertisers don't want night time inventory for any reason (let alone overnight inventory) and those that do which pay on a CPM basis are paying a fraction of what a daytime spot would cost.  (When hosts spout off ratings, they are talking Shares-- percentage of people listening to the radio while they are on who are listening to them-- so as you can see, a 10 share in morning drive will produce exponentially more listeners than a 10 share at 2 a.m-- many more people listening to the radio at 7 am then the middle of the night.  Hence  advertisers don't care about shares-- they want to know about many Persons they reach.  Further, when hosts spout of numbers of listeners, like millions-- they are talking Cumes-- the cumulative total of people who are listening during a week, as opposed to Average Quarter Hour which is roughly the number of people listening at any given time-- a number exponentially lower than the Cume.   National advertisers buy on Average Quarter Hour Persons because they want to know how many people are available at the minute their message is airing, and AQH Persons is the closest they'll come to assessment,  assuming there's any validity to this rating scheme but I won't belabor that. Nor will I get into demographics, another big factor.)   Mutual using the standard network model of selling time based on CPM produced very little revenue for Herb.

So how did Herb make that $2 million?  On direct response-- concentrating on advertisers who could measure results.  He targeted companies who he believed would be of interest to his audience and when he produced enough revenue to make it worthwhile for them to continue advertising, they did so.  Icy Hot can thank Herb Jepko for their start.  Apart from ads, he had conventions, did tours ('the all riding no walking tour of Hawaii' was my favorite), and had a monthly newsletter "The Wick" and was cleaning up until Mutual came along.  He died a drunk.

Art was a fan of The Nitecaps (it's why he has so many phone numbers for different regions of the country-- that was a Jepko bit I also won't belabor), but he either didn't know the inside story or didn't understand what he was getting into  with the sale to Jacor/Premiere.  The deal couldn't have happened without Art's approval.  I cringed when he put out a press release saying the new owners gave him total programming control.  I was yelling at the radio saying, 'Dope, you need SALES control.'   TRN (Talk Radio Network, which at that point had no other product) understood direct response and they were doing a good job at selling the show.  They took the $9 million they were offered because they realized Art could walk if they didn't.  Bad blood still exists, though TRN has done very well with Savage, Ingraham, et al.  (Let me also say that Direct Response is often these days what PI spots are called-- but PI-- Per Inquiry spots pay radio and television stations or networks based upon the number of responses which is a gamble. I 'm referring to Direct Response advertisers that pay a set rate for spot schedule.)

First thing Premiere does when they got the show was to inform stations they'd be requiring two units of daytime inventory a day in order for them to carry the show.  (This was not an uncommon request back in the days of wired nets.)   The stations, almost en masse, informed them, they could go to hell.   What Premiere was trying to do was to fit Coast to Coast into their CPM model... they knew they couldn't sell overnight CPM and had no idea how to sell Direct Response, and wouldn't want to expend the effort anyway as their mode of operations was so different.   When that failed, they had a problem on their hands.  But not immediately-- a lot of the Direct Response advertisers were loyal to the show, so revenue they didn't solicit continued to come in.

A year or so later, Jacor was bought by Clear Channel. This was actually good for Coast to Coast in the long run financially because Clear Channel could force the stations it owned that were talk formatted to run the show-- and force them to carry that daytime inventory.  Problem solved.   Further, as time progressed, it became the norm of all current syndicators to force clearance of shows that stations might not want in exchange for shows they did want.  --Want Rush Limbaugh in the day? Gotta run Dr. Dean Edell (for many years).  In short order, Rush was so successful they were able to charge cash for the show (only one able to do that currently) in addition to the standard barter arrangement where stations run network spots within the show.  Down the road Premiere was additionally able to force other product on affiliates who wanted Rush.   I can name some eye popping non CC owned call letters (not many but in one case. a huge market) that were told if you want Rush, you'll also carry Coast to Coast, or we'll give Rush to your competition who will carry Coast.    (Today that hijacking scenario is so common among syndicators that it explains how some obviously secondary product winds up on primary radio stations.)  With Coast it's not the norm as there's little competition and many of the affiliates are already owned by Clear Channel, but it's happened.

So what we're seeing happen in his scenario is that the revenue Coast brings comes more from outside the show.  Secondarily there's a small stream from things like the newsletter, streamlink, and amazon products (i.e. the bumpers) on the site.  Nevertheless, the hope is always that the revenue inside the show will be sizable. I doubt Art was thrilled with some of the sponsors they began to amass.  I'm going to skip over his leaving the first time, and the choice of Mike Siegal-- that's another soap opera.  (Let me cut to the chase and say it worked out well for Art--  when he left the first time, the contractual restrictions on him were so severe that I joked he couldn't even appear in a public restroom.  When he came back after Siegel, he made sure those restrictions wouldn't continue to exist should he leave again.)

BUT..  by the time Art left again, I strongly suspect the choice of George (made unilaterally by Kraig Kitchin at Premiere) was based solely on his malleable nature. In George they have everything they want, if their goal is to have someone so grateful for their job that they'll never complain.  He is and he won't.

Who else would read a commercial for The Psychic Pill?!   I'm sure you can point out many examples. 

The downside of possible losing stations is a non factor-- consider the previous info and add that there is no real competition and likely will not be in radio's current incarnation.    The downside side of losing listeners, is virtually unnoticed:

Ego ratings will continue to look great.  The way ratings are currently taken, news/talk stations are favored during late night periods (boring reasons I'll spare you).   Since Coast has no viable competition, it continues to have great ratings.  But remember, those ratings hosts love to cite are Shares-- the percentage of people listening to any station that are listening to them.  If people turn off the radio, it doesn't affect Shares.   It also doesn't affect Share when people listen to non-commercial stations, such as public radio (because ratings are used for sales purposes, they don't factor stations that can't sell-  you can find them if you know how to look, but the publicly stated data doesn't factor them).   

This is actually a not uncommon radio dillemma. I've always said if you don't know why you're winning, you won't know when you lose or what to do about it when you finally do.  Ratings lag performance, and in very successful products. by years.  For instance when I was programming a station in 1979 in Los Angeles, KABC was #1.  I said at the time they were already slipping-- I could feel it. (I was not a direct competitor, I was PD of a music station.)   In 1982, KIIS, a top 40 station became an 'overnight' #1--  overnight my foot.  KABC was probably not in the top 5 in reality by 1980.   The inverse is true too.  By 1987 I knew KFI was gaining great traction, but it wasn't until the '90s that it dominated any demo.

Now that you've waded through all that, you get to the reality--   over the past several years the show has become virtually unlistenable to the bright, hip crowd that Art fostered.  Some have left entirely, some listen with less enthusiasm because there's nothing else.  They're replaced with the brain dead-- those who think George is the ultimate host. (Believe me,they're there-- they complain when anyone exhibits personality, or interjects a comment. And they're cruel.  I can figure out why George Knapp wouldn't want to see Fast Blast.  Unless you've been doing this for decades and nothing bothers you, most of it will shake anyone up.  I found it funny though sad and telling at the same time.)

The behind the scenes people working on the show are emboldened because they're working with George who likely has no say or control over anything-- and theyr'e able to lord over most weekend hosts who are either inexperienced or totally new to radio. They've got producers telling hosts what to do.  (This is completely backward it the real radio world-- producers work for hosts, not the other way around.)  And all have consumed the kool-aid that this is a terrific show with a wonderful living heritage on which they self-righteously expound at the drop of a dime.  It's the blind with an attitude leading the brain dead without a clue.  I strongly doubt anyone in the equation has enough radio savvy to remotely understand that their indicators of success belie the truth, let alone enough insight to know what makes good radio.

I snobbishly say a host better learn how to play records before they play the talk hits--  Art did. Rush did.  Rush's success came not from his politics.  It was phrases like 'feminazi' not what he thought of feminists.  He, in his build up days, was truly an entertainer.   Art had a good deal of that too.  And when he stumbled upon the paranormal genre, it was perfect (actually not a lot different from what Long John Nebel was doing in the '40s and  '50s in New York). 

I suspect unless there is a major change, Coast will continue to devolve with no one there aware.  I also suspect unless there are major changes in radio, there will be nothing that immediately threatens them.  The losers are the listeners, at least those who are not drooling.    The move toward 'conspiracy', to my programming ears, is catastrophic, but the staff embraces it.  True conspiracy fans are so beyond George's questions that it defies elaboration, and those that don't know much about it are less likely to be interested in it.   Producers (I worked with Lisa Lyons and did not enjoy the experience)  also shun many of the paranormal avenues worth exploring.

So why did I ever agree to do the show again?  In small part because I didn't realize how much it had devolved, since i rarely have a chance to listen to it, and in major part because a wonderful friend at Clear Channel corporate asked me to do it because it was his opinion that there was no one on the show with a real radio background.  So I did for awhile.   But it really was a drain, and increasingly I saw no upside given all the above.  On an emotional level, it hurts me to the core that this venue has over 500 stations and programming is either an afterthought or the product of people without the necessary knowledge to make it work.  Probably some of both-- but the combination of expedience and ignorance is likely a symptom of radio today which is why I'm so blessed to be able to do my show on my terms and actually profit from it.  I keep that in mind each time I grouse about having to be responsible for every facet from engineering to sales, but in the end, it's the only way I could possible survive.  Too old and too impatient to actually be in a radio station or syndicator these days.

Well [removed], I'm sure that's more than you wanted to know and more than I should have written. Again I'm trusting you to not make it public.   

I'm at a horrible stage where I'm really no longer to answer most of the emails (I guess I should be glad because it means people listen, but it really does bother me I can't physically answer them all and still do anything.)  I'm still sick and have been lying in bed today, hence the luxury of a response I'll probably never be able to give again any time soon.   Plus it got me to further delay a bunch of projects I'd probably rather not do

I'm thinking I might have to act like a parent and limit my net use to two hours a day, or something.  I can't imagine how you spend all the time you do online.

Great to have you listening to my show.  I hope you'll call some night!

Rollye

[SnapT]

This was supposed to be an Art Bell tribute show?  Seems more like a Heather Wade tribute show.

I guess now that Art's soul resides in her earthly body, they're one and the same...

[TigerLily]

Dave. A great guest would be Mary Roach, author of "Packing for Mars". All about humans and space travel

[GravitySucks]

This was supposed to be an Art Bell tribute show?  Seems more like a Heather Wade tribute show.

I guess now that Art's soul resides in her earthly body, they're one and the same...

The two became one

[Spookcat]

This was supposed to be an Art Bell tribute show?  Seems more like a Heather Wade tribute show.

I guess now that Art's soul resides in her earthly body, they're one and the same...

I think she threw away the idea of an Art Tribute show. Perhaps she's angry that others did it before she got back on the air.

[21st Century Man]

G'night Dave and Winnie.

[SpookyTim]

She still finds a way to work Art into everything about her.

Hi Paul.

[TigerLily]

I think she threw away the idea of an Art Tribute show. Perhaps she's angry that others did it before she got back on the air.

Vultures! 

[Spookcat]

She still finds a way to work Art into everything about her.

Hi Paul.

It's capitalization at this point.

[Spookcat]

Vultures! 

[Kolchak]

This was supposed to be an Art Bell tribute show?  Seems more like a Heather Wade tribute show.

I caught a bit while stuck on the 101 coming back from work. There was a solid 20 minutes devoted to patting herself on the back for figuring out how to install a dump button (the instructions are downloadable from Eventide's website).

Art would be proud.

[TigerLily]

The two became one

Soon she will be channeling Art just like Weebly does with his dearly departed. If she can get him off the ceiling

[21st Century Man]

Do I dare turn on the "Queen of Suck"?  Well maybe for a minute until Coast comes back on air.

[SnapT]

At least Falkie shows us the respect of doing his unboxings on VIDEO.  Heather treats us like we're all blind.

Heather isn't even as good at broadcasting as FALKIE.

[PB the Deplorable]

You guys love our American Booze and we love Sushi And Sake...

We do?

[GravitySucks]

Soon she will be channeling Art just like Weebly does with his dearly departed. If she can get him off the ceiling

I have ceiling art. Small leak during Harvey.

[21st Century Man]

Caller's talking about Art's sexy voice.  I doubt she would say that if she really knew about Art.

[PB the Deplorable]

Heather should rename her show Midnight at the Lonely Hearts Club.

They're not lonely.  They have cats.

[Jocko Johnson]

We do?

Most cities have a number of sushi places. Big cities like NY has them all over, hell it is made and sold in almot every supermarket even down in the southern US as well as the restaurants! Where have you been PB?