passing spirals
New cars are dropping the am radio. I suppose the heyday of the saving is gone — the mass audience stars of Limbaugh and Larry King and Art Bell are passed away. Even now the major rated rated talk radio station is on the FM dial, as a divide of old audiences and general as too young shifts from am / FM to FM / not radio. And am radio makes with the sound of dust.
And I was listening to a podcast series on the life and career of Art Bell. The hosts made an interesting but quite fully formed observation. We move out of an era of harmless conspiracy mongering to rancid. The new host of coast to coast, they claim, show reactionary politics where Bell only dipped into politics a smattering of times, flashing a few libertarian biases and shoving aside party politics. And on we go to the Alex Jones and qanoners. They failed to note a dividing line, even while brushing past it. 9/11. Art Bell did the 9/11show, sure, as becomes something historical and archive placed but nothing you want to actually listen to because — yep! But they failed to note something key with Art Bell and how everyone else progress forward without him. What did Art Bell think happened on 9/11? Simply put, that a group of Islamic radicals did it. On the rest, he was more than eager to have on Popular Mechanics to do spell the rest of it.
So. No. The line that he was willing to entertain any notion, and keep close lip on what he might actually believe of it, was not entirely accurate. But maybe he was a tool of the Feds.
If we are declaring the death knell of am radio, maybe this is where pirates and hams will take over as AI programs everywhere else. A tribute to Art Bell, of sorts.