When Art Bell, long time host of the “Coast to Coast” radio show which attracts up to ten million listeners a night, announced his retirement on his July 1, 2007 show, he knew that his listeners had heard this before. So he emphasized, “This time it’s for real though. It’s for real.”
But now, six months later, Bell’s retirement is not sounding so permanent.
On the night of Jan 4, 2008, Bell was sitting in for George Noory who was on holidays. Nothing odd about that, as Bell had said when announcing his retirement that he would occasionally fill in or do a special. What was odd was Bell’s response when a caller popped the question: ‘When are you coming back?’ Bell explained that he had done the show for years and was spending time with his family. “I’m in a break here,” he said.
A break? That doesn’t sound like permanent retirement.
The caller told Bell that he didn’t think the hosts who had replaced him were taking the show in the direction he had intended. “If they’re taking it in a direction that listeners don’t want,” Bell responded, “they won’t be here because the ratings will fall.” He added calmly, “Time will tell.”
This story was originally written for Downtown Eastside Enquirer blogspot. A related story at the downtowneastsideenquirer.blogspot is: Art Bell Retires from Coast to Coast Radio Show
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27 users commented in " Is Art Bell Hinting at a Come-back? "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackArt needs to stay away from c2c. He is quite dated and very annoying.
George is making a well rounded program.
It is quite refreshing to not hear about UFOs all night.
It is also a relief to have a host that has an open mind.
I think Art Bell is “getting with the times”. He doesn’t just talk about UFO’s all the time!! I like them both. I do think that George Noory should talk more about his personal (love) life. All I know is that he likes St. Louis.. umm who is he dating etc.. It adds to the host’s character when they talk about their personal life. He should spend LESS time researching for the show and MORE time taking vacations.. come on only 1 week vacation a year. he’s gonna burn out!
“Art Bell is annoying.”
“George is making a well rounded program.”
“George should talk more about his love life.”
Wow.
These two dolts perfectly sum up the “new crop” of listeners currently listening to C2C.
Let’s be frank, George is OK but he is no Art Bell! Also Ian is pitiful,
George Knapp is pretty good… I for one would welcome Art coming back. I
have noticed at my building where about 360 people are working when coast
to coast is on are more and more being turned to other shows. And to the
people who don’t like the UFO stuff F-U…
We get plenty of the other stuff during the day.
I surely do hope Art Bell comes back!!! His connections with people of interest and his ability to pull them into Coast to Coast are a great plus. Also, he is much more personable and open than George Norry. Also George Norry gets too religious for my taste, and he often interrupts the guests as if he knows more than they do, which is rude. I believe a talk show host should try to bring out as honestly and as completely as possible, the views of the guest who is “on stage” for the evening. I also do not like the direction the show is going and feel it is going dry and boring without Art. PLEASE come back, Art!!
George is boring. The show has become cookie-cutter since his arrival. You might as well read your newspaper or watch Fox News.
I truly wish Art would come back. George is taking the show in a direction that I could care less about. It’s a joke. George is a nice guy and very well intentioned, but he is no Art Bell. I can understand if Art is just tired of doing his show, but I am only interested in the paranormal. The other topics he has on are boring. I could care less about politics and oil and energy prices. I want my alternative radio. The only one who comes close to Art, in my opinion is Rollye James , and they must not like her because she is not on that I have heard lately. Are you listening Art? Please come back or just kill the show.
I have listened to Art for many years. Many a night his show would end and the hair on my back would be standing up! I miss that type of radio. I know Art misses the listeners too. His new baby is so cute, so I he has been busy. Come on back, Art.
I for one miss Art Bell, I use to call him my Big Brother because he was born 3 days before me. If he sees this he will remember me. I use to live in Washington state when I called him that. I now live in Idaho & I for one miss his programs. He didn’t only talk about UFO’S but a vrity of topices and he had my ear to the radio. expecaly since I’m a day person it was extremly hard to stay up that late, but Art had the gift to keep me wide eyed and bushy tailed to his programs.
George Noory is no Art Bell…but who is!?! George is not as witty or quick as Art, but he does a fairly good job. He is pleasant to listen to seems like a decent person. Perhaps, if we are so sad that Art has finally gotten a life outside of radio, we should find our own lives, instead of pining away for what once was. I enjoy the mix of paranormal, science, and politics. We can’t just learn about the world from CNN,FOX, and the Discovery Channel. Why not have some fun with the serious stuff? There’s more to life than UFO’s and ghosts.
Art Bell is the best. But why has he not been interviewed? It would be fascinating for the world to ponder his thoughts?
When Art interviewed Ed Dames last week, he mentioned something about getting his website back up again. Hmmm? Very interesting
Art wouldnt have to have a full night of the show. He could open the first two hours, Then george could take it from there.
I hope Art does come back! He’s simply great at, George is just too boring!!!
As a long time C2C listener I have to say that while George does yeoman’s work, his show is not nearly as interesting as when Art hosted it. The guests aren’t as good, the subject matter is tepid, and George is not as good an interviewer as Art is. While George is here to stay on C2C, I welcome Art’s return to at least the weekends, if he is to return at all.
I like Ian Punnett but he’s really, in my opinion, not very good. I mean, he’s not untalented, but he lacks that “something,” that intangible quality found in top broadcasters.
George Knapp is, to me, a jerk. He talks with callers in a condescending manner sometimes, and while not overtly rude, skirts the line on that one.
Art’s comment a couple of weeks ago while hosting live that he may “have reason” to bring back his website was interesting. I suppose that the main reason for bringing it back would be him returning to host.
If anyone at Premier checks out this blog, truly George’s version of C2C is anemic when compared to Art’s. In comparing “Art Bell, Somewhere in Time” to the current live C2C one can easily see why and how the old C2C was more dynamic and interesting than it is now. The poster who mentioned, above, that at his place of work people were tuning to other programs on the overnight is not surprising to me. You guys at Premier ought to fix C2C. Thanks.
I prefer George Knapp over Noory and Ian. But I think George Knapp has other journalism jobs that keep him too busy to do more than a couple shows a month. I can always hope, though.
Art did make a comment on the Friday, May 23rd show about possibly having a reason to bring back his website. He also mentioned that contractually, he only had 3 or 4 more shows to do with C2C.
Very interesting…
Here’s my theory: Art owned the rights to the show which he sold to Premier Radio. When he sold, he agreed to stay on as host, but remember how he was sporadically absent with back problems & such? At those times, George Noory would fill in. It was like tapering off of Art and ramping up George. Meanwhile, he signed a non-compete agreement with Premier stating he would not produce a competing broadcast of the same genre’ for a period of what will be 5 years on October 23, 2008. At that point, his non-compete will have expired, freeing him to re-launch his website and any radio program format he chooses.
Just a theory, and there are plenty of them out there. it’ll be interesting to see what actually happens.
I still love C2C and their topics. Art has gotten on my nerves plenty of times when he cuts off his guests in the middle of their thoughts - but there is only one Art Bell and the show truly has not been the same since he left. I hope he does come back.
I really miss Art. I try to listen to c2c most nights but:
the subject and/or guests are boring,
way too much focus on doom and gloom for our country, economy, etc.
Well frankly, I really miss Art Bell. There is no one like him. Since he left C2C I stopped listening. Every now and then I try to tune in but the show format and interviewer styles are lacking. I long for the days of Art Bell; I miss the good ol’ days when Art did all the advertising and the shows were long and captivating!
George is ok but sometimes he comes off as
a little to liberal. if people wanted to hear
everything on the planet (including 9-11) blamed on bush then
air-america would not be bankrupt.
don’t get me wrong i am not some ditto head
but art called the government as a whole
into question and rarly got into real politics
i’m only 16 so i was young when art was
full time but his voice and the show in general
had a comforting, x-files-twilight zone kind of
fell to it that i just don’t get from george
Come back, Art Bell. We need you, we miss you. Without you, the information is not getting out. (However, it is time to permanently s-can Ed Dames.)
I thought I was alone in my sadness. Several friends have stopped listening to C2C altogether. I have actually w-mailed to complain about boring programs, lackluster guests. Some topics/guests are TOTALLY out of place. Ian has to go. Some of the other fill-in hosts were much much better than George. Nice guy but doesn’t have the depth or credibility. Maybe it is the Producers who are at fault. I have never received a response from them to any of my e-mail.
I’ve even e-mailed Art begging him to COME BACK!!!
Of course the ratings have dropped … I haven’t listened in years. And George’s commercial with that Hollywood dropout selling timeshares makes me want to shoot myself.
Art Bell is a classic. No one can really replace him, and no one has. I miss Art, and I would certainly welcome his “come back”. The whole concept of the show was not to talk about politics, the weather, and the usual stuff you can get on CNN. It was intended as a forum for UFO’s, the supernatural, Yetti, and the like. this is what is was, and what it should continue to be, and Art in the only person thus far who can do it, and do it right.
Most of you people never heard Art in his old days, before Coast to Coast. I heard him his very first night on the air, way back when he was with KDWN in Las Vegas, and did a show called West Coast AM, which I was a devoted listener to. C2C was born from that show. He was not syndicated back then, but the show had a strong signal at night, with a large listener base. There will never be another show like that. NEVER.
I recognized Art’s special gift from the start, but I have to admit that even though the listener base and popularity grew after he became syndicated, for me the show went slowly downhill. It was good at first, but it gradually became much too commercial and repetitive and eventually lost it’s appeal for me. I stopped listening, because Art got so extreme and ridiculous at times that he lost credibility with me. I missed the old Art. The only listeners who seemed to love the later show were the ones who never knew him back in the day.
For those of you who don’t know, in Art’s early days, his show was an open forum that tended to focus on news, current events, and politics, which sometimes drifted into paranormal or metaphysical topics, but it wasn’t stuck there. It was more spontaneous and exciting, and didn’t drown listeners with just type thing like it later did. Paranormal is fine, but it can get very old and predictable. Still, I will always miss Art. If he ever comes back, I can only hope the show will be more open and spontaneous like the early days, where any topic goes. Art does not always need guests. He is good on his own, and has a great gift and ability to discuss anything that comes up. The constant barrage of guests killed the show for me. I don’t want predictable. Art should never allow himself to drift into being predictable. It’s not his best style.
@OldArtLover - thanks for the reflections on his early show. I never heard that show - in fact I only came across C2C about a month before Ramona died, so I missed the best days of C2C too (I’m thankful they at least play the Art Bell Somewhere in Time replays once a week). But, despite the chaos after Ramona’s death, I at least got a glimpse here and there of how good C2C could be with Art at the helm, and I miss it.
I really hope Art does come back in some fashion after his non-compete expires. I can’t stand Noory - as someone on another site said, the man is an asshat. He’s a poor interviewer, arrogant and pretentious, just not that smart, and some of the clowns he surrounds himself with drive me right up the wall. Despite having a Streamlink membership, I don’t listen to Noory’s shows at all any more. I keep Streamlink to hear Art Bell Somewhere in Time, Art when he’s on (damn little any more), Ian (he’s ok in my book), and George Knapp, who I like quite a bit.
But, if Art’s earlier show was more political in nature, I hope he doesn’t go that direction in any comeback. There’s enough damn politics on the air, we don’t need any more of that. Art did mainstream science as well as paranormal (love the interviews with Michio Kaku, for example) - and has a lot more respect for real science than Noory does, btw - and anything along the lines of the best of his C2C shows would be fine with me.
Whatever he does, I wish him the best. Hearing that voice out of the High Desert in the middle of the night was a unique experience, and I hope to hear him doing something similar again.
I love Art he should move to Phoen ix AZ we are the hot bed of UFO’s and other strangeness nowdays.
I’d work for him for free.
wish I had his email.
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