Ever since Art Bell quit DARK MATTER on Sirius XM, fans on Bellgab.com have taken to the popular message board to express their frustration with the sudden move..
Tonight, Bell expressed some frustration back..
After hundreds of pages of the thread, the now former radio show host wrote this in a response to someone asking him for information:
Thanks for asking, I am fine. Nothing much to say that I have not already said but good evening! However I will repeat, people here have no idea the intense talks that were going on from about 3 days after the show started about the stream drops, I do understand however how it seemed abrupt to the listener. Also, the deal we tried to make on Wed, two days after the show stopped was a very good one and after saying they took it very seriously they stopped communicating. I will say again, I think something else is going on. For those above who listened and did not like the show anyway, it should not even be a issue worth talking about unless you just like seeing a message from yourself.
A few more posts later, Bell unleashed regarding Sirius XM:
People keep saying “why don’t you try and work it out with Sirius/XM” We have been trying to do that from three days after the show started, we had confrence call after confrence call with them trying to get it worked out, there was a lot of talk but no fix. We told them the base was leaving and this would effect our partnership if something was not done. At about the six Week mark after most who had tried the free 30 day trial had given up and left MAINLY because of the drop outs we asked for a remedy as in a Year of streaming OR until the problem was fixed, it ended when they said NO. 48 Hours after that we made a offer to work with no pay and let Sirius/XM have the show exclusivly while we streamed from the Web Site, they said they would consider that and have not responded to phone calls, email’s or texting since. How is that NOT working with them?
The HORROR REPORT has been told that the ‘typical’ means of communication have taken place .. Camp Bell proposed the idea last week of broadcasting DARK MATTER live on ArtBell.com, while Sirius would have maintained exclusive rights to the program.. Bell and others, including his producer and friend Paul Bowman, said that Sirius XM were considering the offer as recently as last Wednesday..
While there has been no official response from the satellite radio company, they also took mentions of Bell off of their website and removed his program from this upcoming weekly lineup..
I am not crazy about the way some things have been handled, they canned Paul without so much as a Human voice doing the job and he had been trying to get a handle on the streaming mess every day. Now they take the tactic of simply not responding in any way to ALL forms of communication the modern World has. At least I spoke to them like people in a normal business relationship. I am telling you there is something else in the works.
Bell continued in further posts trying to provoke users to express anger and questions at Sirius XM instead of him.. The bizarre situation even has the likes of Richard C. Hoagland commenting on the entire affair..
As of Sunday night, the DARK MATTER program remains, overall, a mystery.. Clear reading of tea leaves may suggest that Bell no longer has a home on Sirius XM, but without a definite answer being given to the host of the program, Producer Bowman, or webmaster Keith Rowland, time will tell–and tell soon. Monday night at 10pm EDT.. will DARK MATTER air, or will Jay Thomas be repeated?
Answers soon.. the drama will soon have an answer..