Bell was a rock music disc jockey before he moved into talk radio. His original 1978 late-night Las Vegas program on KDWN was a political call-in show under the name West Coast AM.[5] In 1988, Bell and Alan Corbeth renamed the show Coast to Coast AM and moved its broadcast from the Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas to Bell’s home in Pahrump.
Broadcast facilities of KNYE in Pahrump, Nevada
Bell abandoned conventional political talk in favor of topics such as gun control and conspiracy theories, leading to a significant increase 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 such as the paranormal, the occult, UFOs, protoscience and pseudoscience. During his tenure at KDWN Bell met and married his third wife, Ramona, who later handled production and management duties for the program.
An article in the February 23, 1997, edition of The Washington Post said that Bell was currently 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”.
