Art Bell - Broadcasting Career

Broadcasting Career

Art Bell was living in Watsonville, California and worked for KIDD 630 AM in Monterey, California during the early 70s. He also owned a dating service and worked for KMST channel 46.

First a rock music jockey before moving into talk radio, Bell's original 1978 late-night Las Vegas program on KDWN was a political call-in show under the name West Coast AM. In 1988, Bell and Alan Corberth renamed the show Coast to Coast AM and moved its broadcast from the Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas to Bell's home in Pahrump.

Bell abandoned conventional political talk in favor of topics such as gun control and conspiracy theories, leading to a significant bump in his overnight ratings. The show's focus again shifted significantly after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Many in the media did not want to be blamed for inciting anti-government or militia actions like the bombing. Subsequently, Bell discussed off-beat topics like the paranormal, the occult, UFOs, protoscience and pseudo-science. During his tenure at KDWN Bell met and married his second wife, Ramona, who later handled production and management duties for the program.

According to The Washington Post in its February 23, 1997 edition: Art Bell was at the time America's highest-rated late-night radio talk show host, broadcast on 328 stations. According to The Oregonian in its June 22, 1997 edition, Coast To Coast AM with Art Bell was on 460 stations. At its initial peak in popularity, Coast To Coast AM was syndicated on more than 500 radio stations and claimed 15 million listeners nightly. Bell's studios were located in his home in the town of Pahrump, located in Nye County, Nevada; hence the voice-over catchphrase, "from the Kingdom of Nye."