Art Bell Quits Dark Matter

[23Skidoo]

For those that have cancelled their Sirius account what happens if this situation is resolved?

* For the record I don't believe that there will be a favorable (for us) resolution but what if?

Like I wrote in my first post (I signed up last night because of this), I cancelled after Art made the announcement on his facebook page. The lady I spoke with mentioned that she was handling a lot of cancellations that night and seemed kind of flustered but was very nice. She asked if I wanted to end my subscription now, and reminded me that it re-bills on the 15th and I could continue to listen until then (I was not foolish enough to go for longer than month-to-month until I knew for sure if Art was staying or not. Big fan, so I know the history).

If the issue gets resolved favorably (the show continues) then I'll restart my subscription. There are a few things I like on Sirius (one sports show, Carlin's Corner, some of the music channels) but not enough to keep me as a subscriber without Art. DEFINITELY not enough to keep me at $15 a month when I can get Netflix and Hulu Plus for just a few more dollars than that COMBINED.

[jblank]

You would prefer a radio host say, " I know their streaming sucks, but fuck you. Deal with it."
No, Art wanted a quality streaming show for all his fans, and Sirius couldn't do that. That was the issue, "fix the streaming". It was NO demand. He asked them to fix it and offered to help even.

So how does Art's cock and balls taste?

It absolutely was a demand....the evidence? HE QUIT THE FUCKING SHOW WHEN THEY DIDN'T DO THINGS HIS WAY!!!!!!!

[mcclellanrobert]

Plan to save show:
A. Stream the show from his website and charge fee for premium service with archives.

B.  Use clout of massive fan base to "gently" persuade Sirius not to bring breach of contract lawsuit (if his contract  is an issue).

C.  If Sirius cannot be dissuaded then use Kickstarter to raise money to "pay off Sirius" to let him out of contract.

D.  If Sirius prevails on the non compete clause (and cannot be bought) pull strings with powerful friends like Bigelow to nudge Sirius sat's out of orbit with super secret "UFO" tech or broadcast show from yacht in International waters and thus outside the reach of United States contract law.

Why should those of us who invested our hard-earned dollars towards a Sirius subscription help to bail out a multi-millionaire's career with a KickStarter campaign?

[iain42]

I use the iPhone app and it was flakey the first week but after the first two shows the app worked perfectly. The only button I had to hit was Keep Listening which was no big deal. I'm beginning to the think issues were likely on the users end. Perhaps flaky wireless networks.


I've been listening to Art Bell since the 90's so I'm a long time fan. But this move is perhaps too hasty. As a fan I feel jerked around. I actually signed up for Sirius because of Art. Graham Hancock is my favorite guest and am really pissed I didn't get an update.

I suppose Snoory can sleep safely knowing there won't be a continuous show to compete with.

A disappointed fan.

[WhiteCrow]

Good morning all! What is that Art called BellGabbers?
"Vicious and Vaguely Lovable"... Yeah that's it.
Why did Art put that label on us? Maybe 'cause a lot of the posts about The Dark Matter guests have been brutally cruel.
Imagine Art's anguish reading those 1000s of negative comments and the negative vibes we sent him.

Art with his announcement that Dark Matter will no longer be on SMX and leaving us to speculate and anguish has an element of poetic justice for the pain we inflicted on Art.
What goes around comes around!

Well played Art! BRAVO!!!

Wanna take a ride? ....YES... I'm all In

Thanks Art, it's been a memorable experience.
I'll be looking forward to listening to Dark Matter for free on your Web site.

Wow, are you seriously suggesting that Art sat at home and cried because I commented that I did not like nor believe the "new and improved" GIS with chimmichunga?  Let's face it, some people did not like certain guests and to demand that everybody not only worship Art, but also each one of his guests is insulting to his audience and him.

If Art left again because there was some criticism of the show or his guests I would be more than a little surprised.  I enjoyed most of the shows (I think there was one or two that I did not bother with).  to demand that the posters (particularly on this forum) not think for themselves and not be a little critical is insane.  There is nobody who has been a public figure for more than a month who does not accept and deal with some criticism.  I like Kathy Bates, but there have been one or two roles that I may have been critical of... yet she continues acting.  There are some politicians that I wish would drop off the face of the earth- yet they are still here.  To suggest that Art is not capable of taking mild criticism along with the buckets of praise heaped upon him is very odd (have you been over the the Noory sucks thread to see what people here are truly capable of?) You may have Art and Dave mixed up when you claim there have been 1000's of negative posts about him on this board.

You also appear to be suggesting that Art is extremely petty (dumping an entire audience because of a few critical posts by a few members on a board with a couple of hundred active posters would not make a lot of sense.)  I do not know the rasons for his departure (short of what he has stated) and do not feel qualified to claim that he has taken his ball and went home because he only received 97% support on a forum rather than 100%.  Who knows... maybe you are right and Art has learned from Asia how to throw temper tantrums and act like a child in response to a negative post.  If that is the case it would make me sad to think that Dave can take 1000% more negativity than Art as it would actually mean that Dave is superior to him in some manner.

Well yes, my post has logic and TRUTH... Consider the facts:
Art lives his life isolated in a double wide, in some god forsaken desert, talking and thinking about spooky paranormal dark matters, and reading and receiving gobs of negative vibes from his supposedly loyal fans.... It'd drive anyone crazy.

[Gone_Squatchin]

I have a free trial with  Sirius and I just now received an email offering one year subscription to online listening for $48.  I am wondering if this is in response to what has happened and an attempt to grab a few subscribers while they can.

[indigoo]

I'd love to know how many people, who had streaming drops, were actually using 3G/4G to stream it? Can anyone speak up?

That's almost as bad as the local radio host here in Buffalo wondering why he can't use Netflix on his Verizon Wireless shared data plan. 

I have a free trial with  Sirius and I just now received an email offering one year subscription to online listening for $48.  I am wondering if this is in response to what has happened and an attempt to grab a few subscribers while they can.

Business as usual, actually. They will send you constant deals like that.

[guildnavigator]

I'd love to know how many people, who had streaming drops, were actually using 3G/4G to stream it? Can anyone speak up?

That's almost as bad as the local radio host here in Buffalo wondering why he can't use Netflix on his Verizon Wireless shared data plan. 

Get this shit: when I was on wifi, I got an error maybe 3 or 4 times out of the whole 6 weeks, but when I'd turn off the wifi and switch to 4g or whatever I have on this damned phone, the cell signal was more stable than the wifi. Never dropped when using 4g, only on wifi.

[jblank]

I just started the petition and already recieved 21 signatures. That was so fast!! ^^

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/artbell/

Why don't you petition Art Bell to stop being such a drama queen asshole? What did Sirius/XM do wrong? Oh, that's right, they didn't give Art his way and give the product away for free. Do you really support forcing a subscriber based company GIVING away a product for free? You're really going to lay the blame for this at their feet, rather than with Art? You folks have some warped sense of looking at things to support Art in this.

[Mhayhurst]

I'd love to know how many people, who had streaming drops, were actually using 3G/4G to stream it? Can anyone speak up?

That's almost as bad as the local radio host here in Buffalo wondering why he can't use Netflix on his Verizon Wireless shared data plan. 

Business as usual, actually. They will send you constant deals like that.

I listened nightly with the iPhone app on wifi and I only had one drop (Oct. 23rd), relaunched the app and it worked flawlessly. I would listen to the replays/On demand on LTE and never had an issue. His quitting has to be larger than this "error" issue.

[jblank]

The truck driver cell phone excuse is SHIT - everyone use cell phones these days and for someone as tech-adept as Art knows that and is acting like an old fuddy duddy for not embracing that.

People who complained about the streaming issues have shitty computers because I have a mediocre computer and i get the Sirius stream just fine.  Art is taking that most extreme examples of problems and turning them into cases against his host.

I agree 100%. I think cell phone thing is an excuse, it is bullshit.

As to the streaming, it NEVER failed for me on either my PC, iPhone, or iPad.

All this stuff is more of the "do what I want or I take my ball and go home" mentality that Art has. He's a drama queen of the highest order and he's being overly sensitive, selfish, lazy, and frankly, disrespectful.

[dan7800]

How would Art charging for a streaming service change anything for him? Piracy would still be rampant.


The more I think about it, the more it boils down to $$$$. If Art really loved what he was doing, he would have found a way to keep broadcasting (2-3x/week, cut down on the length of the shows etc...) The quality of the callers likely had little to do with it. Also, why would he care about piracy? Actually, it would improve the callers. More listeners = more callers.


Remember when Art signed up to Sirius. He had a base salary of something small (like $75k) and the rest was going to basically come from advertisements. I am guessing Ccrane. With the rise in piracy, his official numbers went down. This means less ad revenue for him. Having a free stream on the site would have allowed him to actually count users, thus being able to charge more (and make more) from ad revenue.

Sirius didn't cave, and the rest is history.

[mcclellanrobert]

JUST CANCELLED SIRIUS.  No problem doing so. The number is 888-601-6302. They will continue the subscription through the billing period - in my case until the 12th.

Best of luck to Art Bell: Fool me once, shame on you - fool me twice, shame on me!

[guildnavigator]

I was really sad that the show ended yesterday but I'm conflicted on this, heavily.

I don't see what's wrong with asking for very limited free streaming, one channel for 16 hours a week until they agreed that the problem was fixed. They were already giving it away for free for thirty days, all channels 24/7.

But for Art to stop broadcasting over it, this is what I'm having trouble with. Unless he is back within a week, and somehow better, I don't get. But I also don't expect that he will be back.

[Xavier]

Received from Art Bell last night in response to an email I sent him...........

, you are the second Bell Gabber to ask so here is the same reply,

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

[dan7800]

Received from Art Bell last night in response to an email I sent him...........

, you are the second Bell Gabber to ask so here is the same reply,

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

If Art came out and said that there was a problem and he was going to cut back to 2 nights/week or heck even take a hiatus until the problem was resolved, then that would have been 100x better.

What a BS excuse.

[Threaten the Hoover]

wow, what a turnaround. I mean him no ill-will, but if he's reading this: Fukushimas Art, mega Fukushimas...

[BillW50]

JUST CANCELLED SIRIUS.  No problem doing so. The number is 888-601-6302. They will continue the subscription through the billing period - in my case until the 12th.

Just wait... according to Internet search engines, that isn't how it ends. Next you have to call your CC to take SiriusXM off of your next bill when SiriusXM continues to charge you. Then when your CC won't pay them, SiriusXM sends your account to a collections agency and then the real fun begins. :-(

[Mhayhurst]

So sad. I only had one issue with the iOS app and a simple relaunch of the app fixed it. This has to be a larger issue than what has been stated. Whether he believes it or not (and I've been listening since '95) its about the guests and Art's interviewing skills and interaction that make the show so great. Sure I love the callers asking questions and open lines are fantastic, but the core of the show, at least in my opinion, was never the callers and XM provided an excellent platform for the show. Angry, sad, frustrated. Hope to have you back on the air in some form Mr. Bell.

[DanTSX]

Received from Art Bell last night in response to an email I sent him...........

, you are the second Bell Gabber to ask so here is the same reply,

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 BS

His show was on 6 weeks.

He did less than 30 shows.

That is not enough time to measure any revenue or ratings results

[indigoo]

Get this shit: when I was on wifi, I got an error maybe 3 or 4 times out of the whole 6 weeks, but when I'd turn off the wifi and switch to 4g or whatever I have on this damned phone, the cell signal was more stable than the wifi. Never dropped when using 4g, only on wifi.

This is very interesting to me. It never dropped on my Wifi - never tried using my 4G as it was unnecessary.

It could have been a combination of things; people's hardware, the actual software, connection issues, etc...to just up and quit is childish. Someone really looking for the best knows that sometimes it will take work. I guess Art expected it all to work. Should have known when he refused to even acknowledge that Android is a platform. Everything to him was iPhone. Only slightly kidding, but I think he's stuck in the 90s.

Sirius should definitely invest in a more stable and advantageous platform though. Flash is the dead walking right now, and there are much better things out there.

[b_dubb]

Art's email makes sense.  Probably would have been smart to share that with everyone right out of the gate. maybe Art needs a publicist?

[McPhallus]

To me, that email puts things in perspective.  There are a lot of factors/issues you are not aware of as a listener.

But the way he chose to end the show without warning was pure shit.

[indigoo]

To me, that email puts things in perspective.  There are a lot of factors/issues you are not aware of as a listener.

But the way he chose to end the show without warning was pure shit.

It just shows that Art can't handle adversity and expected nothing but pure perfection. What did he expect when he asked people to put up money to listen to him? Yet many people still did. I bet nearing the end of his contract, if he stuck with it, he would look back and realize it was a success. The userbase is large and he barely gave it a chance to work.

[AppealPlay]

Art's email makes sense.  Probably would have been smart to share that with everyone right out of the gate. maybe Art needs a publicist?

What page is that e-mail on?  I don't have the patience to scroll through dozens of pages looking for it.

[jblank]

That's BS

His show was on 6 weeks.

He did less than 30 shows.

That is not enough time to measure any revenue or ratings results

Agreed. With regards to calls, MAYBE if he'd stop telling people to NOT CALL IN during the first three hours of the show, he'd have gotten more callers. I'm good until 12:00 or so, but I can't stay up till 1:30 in the morning to call in, I have to work, I have to sleep.

[maren]

Fuck you, John Hogue!!!!! 

Yeah -- no kidding!  I'd forgotten about his pontifical prediction.  Insufferable. 

So now Noory is playing It's Over and Hogue will be reveling in his prescient wisdom.  Blech. 

[DontFearTheReaper]

How would Art charging for a streaming service change anything for him? Piracy would still be rampant.


The more I think about it, the more it boils down to $$$$. If Art really loved what he was doing, he would have found a way to keep broadcasting (2-3x/week, cut down on the length of the shows etc...) The quality of the callers likely had little to do with it. Also, why would he care about piracy? Actually, it would improve the callers. More listeners = more callers.


Remember when Art signed up to Sirius. He had a base salary of something small (like $75k) and the rest was going to basically come from advertisements. I am guessing Ccrane. With the rise in piracy, his official numbers went down. This means less ad revenue for him. Having a free stream on the site would have allowed him to actually count users, thus being able to charge more (and make more) from ad revenue.

Sirius didn't cave, and the rest is history.

I think you nailed it - and his email to several BellGabbers where he talks about Bob Crane being unhappy with the show's numbers are a clue to this as well.

[DontFearTheReaper]

It just shows that Art can't handle adversity and expected nothing but pure perfection. What did he expect when he asked people to put up money to listen to him? Yet many people still did. I bet nearing the end of his contract, if he stuck with it, he would look back and realize it was a success. The userbase is large and he barely gave it a chance to work.

Agreed - he didn't even give SiriusXM listeners a chance to find him. Almost every night, there would be at least one caller who said they were a new listener, heard a commercial on another XM station, etc. Art clearly didn't have the patience and/or work ethic to cultivate this new audience. Instead, he expected his entire decade-old AM radio audience to automatically port over to SiriusXM and call his show by the thousands every night. That didn't happen, so he took his ball and went home - leaving quite a few people in the lurch with radio equipment and subscriptions.

[maren]

Agreed - he didn't even give SiriusXM listeners a chance to find him. Almost every night, there would be at least one caller who said they were a new listener, heard a commercial on another XM station, etc. Art clearly didn't have the patience and/or work ethic to cultivate this new audience. Instead, he expected his entire decade-old AM radio audience to automatically port over to SiriusXM and call his show by the thousands every night. That didn't happen, so he took his ball and went home - leaving quite a few people in the lurch with radio equipment and subscriptions.

You're right.  I can see both sides (Art's frustration and impatience and wanting to find a compromise, and Sirius's probable incredulity at being asked to essentially give away a product they'd invested in for profit for free), but ultimately, Art didn't give it a real chance to shake out and see if they could address the problems satisfactorily. 

I think his ego just got kicked when they didn't acquiesce to The King Of The Night.  So my biggest criticism is directed at Art. 

Surprisingly, I thought it was Noory who was being the adult in the room with his "no comment" resonse.  But then he played It's Over.   :