Art Bell, the radio icon that joined the SiriusXM line-up on September 16th is leaving the air after just a month and a half.  While passionate satellite radio fans may not want to hear it, his reasons for leaving boiled down to three main things:

– SiriusXM’s web player is notoriously unreliable, causing a loss of subscribers and a degraded listening experience for those who remain listening online.

– For a “caller driven” show, the caller pool for art’s show is just too small.

– International listeners have no legitimate way to hear the show.

Since Bell’s new program arrived to the airwaves on  Sept. 16 premiere, there have been, according to Bell on his website, many problems with streaming his show.

“Many thousands of my listeners came on board when it began but they have fallen off because of that reason,” Bell said. “It’s a systemic problem. For a caller-driven show like this one, speaking only to people on cell phones in moving vehicles is somewhat difficult.“The show also is being pirated, oh you have no idea. We are all over the Net right now, from YouTube to a server in England, for example, that’s streaming the show live. And because of all this, I have asked SiriusXM to alter their normal method of doing business and allow free streaming for everybody from artbell.com.

“If we get the opportunity to do this streaming, we will kick some serious butt…If not, we may not have a viable situation going forward.” ~ Art Bell

This is not the first time that we have heard issues relating to the Internet platform offered up by SiriusXM.  There have been a host of issues from the functionality to being booted off, to having longer shows reset from the beginning after an hour and a half, making it almost impossible to listen to a 2 hour show on demand.

When signed by SiriusXM, Bell had only glowing things to say:

“SiriusXM is the perfect fit for me and my new show Art Bell’s Dark Matter,” said Art Bell. “Though invisible, dark matter accounts for gravitational forces observed in the universe—expect these forces to be at work in the uncensored, unrestricted creative arena of satellite radio, a medium with truly extraterrestrial reach.”

It would appear that after just a short period of time, second thoughts emerged.

It appears that SiriusXM had decided not to work things out for Bell, as his website now indicates he posted the following on his Facebook page:

“Sometimes when you are ‘all in’ you win, sometimes lose. By mutual agreement, Dark Matter will no longer air as of tonight.”

The departure of  Bell, as unfortunate as it is, should be a signal to SiriusXM.  The company has a compelling product, great content, and great potential, but in some ways has lost the edge that it once had.  The frustrations of Bell can be heard on other channels as well.  Opie & Anthony, Howard Stern, Jay Thomas, and others have all at times expressed a great deal of frustration.  In some ways, the complaints of on air personalities ring back to the old FM days of terrestrial radio, a path that many consumers and on air personalities could not wait to get away from.

an unnamed source scheduled for an appearance on Bell’s show received an email from someone in Bell’s camp, which stated: “I regret to inform you (and all upcoming guests) that “Art Bell’s Dark Matter” program will no longer be airing live shows effective immediately. I’m really thankful for your efforts with regards to being on the program and I truly apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

“Should events change in the future, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

The show had only been on the air since Sept. 16, and tonight’s program is a scheduled repeat, after only being on SiriusXM for just six weeks.

And once again, Art Bell’s voice has gone silent. But not for long.

Art states :

TO ALL OUR FANS, LISTENERS AND WEB VISITORS