Art Bell responds to anger over DARK MATTER exit

He took to the now famed pages of BELLGAB to explain–and apologize–for his rapid exit from Sirius XM radio..

The full text here:

Hi there, I am now on the site, I tried Yesterday but it would not take my PW, I tried to change it because I thought I might
not have remembered it correctly. Today it is taking my original PW just fine.

If it will help, I am sorry. I know many of you are angry in your usual style which I expected but there is nothing new I can say
that will make any of you feel any better. It is as I have said, I had hundreds of emails from people who tried the 30 day free
trial and were getting dropped left and right, Sirius was aware of the problem.(many of you know because you tried to
help with the error reporting) I am sure some dropped because they did not like my show or just did not have the money, but
by far most dropped because of the drops. This was a problem that we talked to them virtually every day about and learned that
it would be a long term fix.

As I mentioned in my emails Yesterday the net effect was that my base was gone, those of you who listened to the show must
have noticed, I sure did, so I asked Sirius for a Year of free streaming or until they could fix the problem, they did offer a second
free 30 day trial but what point is there in that if people would have the same experience? Anything beyond that, they were unwilling
to do. It just did not make any sense to me that pirates were posting programs the next day and live streams were popping up all
over the place that did not even carry our commercials without anybody doing anything about it, just crazy. Why not stream until
the problem was fixed with our commercials? It was a widespread problem including here on Bell Gab, right? My thinking was and
still is that it would have drawn many more into the program, eventually becomming full subs.

I am still open to patching this up, but not without some tip of the hat to those that left because of the streaming problem, we even offered
to pay for the streaming ourselves until it could be fixed. Anyway I am here so feel free to continue to cut me up and you can be
sure I am absorbing your anger.

Art

Again I am truly sorry to those who got caught in this and lost any money because you bought a radio or tried the NET.

What followed that post late this afternoon was a long back and forth between BELLGAB posters and Bell himself. Several users were expressing anger, if not rage, at Bell’s sudden departure. Art Bell took time to respond to several issues, saying he would return if the argument over streaming issues is worked out between his camp and Sirius XM. Also, Bell alluded to another non compete clause, which in effect would keep him off any form of radio for the foreseeable future–a strange place for him to be since he was so happy to have emerged from the long Premiere clause he was stuck with after quitting Coast to Coast AM.

Calls to Sirius XM management have gone unreturned. However, contact made to the customer service line has revealed that the operators have been told to say that Bell decided to pull the plug on DARK MATTER, and that the satellite company wishes him ‘luck’ in the future. At least a few users said when they attempted to cancel, they were lured into another month of ‘free’ membership just in case DARK MATTER reinvents itself and returns.  But with Sirius saying Bell has decided to cancel the show himself, it would appear that both sides have found their talking point.

And while the world is still confused by this entire event, the always laughable “Hitler reacts” video has already been posted..