Art Bell quits (again)
Does he realize how badly his fans feel burned?
Many fans of the freaky and paranormal got their start in the 1980s and 1990s listening to Art Bell's "Coast to Coast" show on AM radio. Art's show was a blockbuster hit, a ratings juggernaut, and a perfect way for radio stations to fill those otherwise-difficult overnight slots. The sheer ubiquity of Art Bell meant that his fan base was enormous.
I listened to Art every night for years. I would drift off to sleep to guests expounding about shadow people, the next extinction event, and a really big hole in some dude's back yard.
Then he quit. Then he came back. Then he quit again. Frankly, it got hard to follow. At the same time, Art's personal life was in turmoil. His wife died, he remarried, had a new daughter, his mother died, he relocated to the Philippines, started broadcasting from there, had connection problems… it got to the point where it was hard for the casual fan to keep track.
Personally I don't think Art ever really recovered his confidence after the Heaven's Gate incident. Courtney Brown went on Art Bell's show and talked at length about how there was an alien spaceship following along in the tail of an approaching comet.
The Heaven's Gate cultists, upon hearing the news, committed mass suicide. All because of Art's show. Art wasn't responsible for their deaths in any way - he never said anything like, "Everybody kill yourself! Quick!" - it was the cultists who were the crazy ones. But still, it weighed on him, and his show choices became more and more conservative.
At any rate, after a long disappearance from the airwaves, Art made a triumphant return to Sirius satellite radio in September, 2013. Many fans, eager for Art's new show, shelled out a lot of cash for Sirius subscriptions and equipment.
And then he quit. After only six weeks, Art Bell called an end to his show on November 4, 2013.
Truthfully, from what I had heard, the show wasn't that great. If Art had someone doing research on new trends and information, you wouldn't know it to look at his guest roster. It was the same old line-up of the usual suspects: Michio Kaku, Richard C. Hoagland, and all the other familiar names. I was dismayed to see that, on the weekend of the official Mothman celebration, Art had no Mothman-related content.
Were the other shows forcing guests not to compete by appearing on Art's show? Or was Art just out of touch? It's hard to say, but the end was ignominious. A sad end to an illustrious career.