Art Bell’s Midnight in the Desert is officially dead as Keith Rowland sells the network..

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This is it. The OFFICIAL end to the end……

Tim Wesiburg writes this on Facebook:

I want to inform the wonderful listeners of Midnight in the Desert that both myself and producer Michelle Freed are no longer associated with that program or the Dark Matter Digital Network.

The previous owner of both the program and the network recently chose to retire and sell everything to another entity. He completely earned that retirement with all of his hard work building both MITD and DMDN into what it is today. He was absolutely awesome to work with for these past few years (and really, since Spooky Southcoast became part of DMDN at the very beginning of the network’s inception) and I thank him for the opportunity, the advice, the guidance, and for what I know will be continued friendship. He has nothing to do with the fact that Michelle and I are no longer part of MITD; in fact, he advocated for us to remain part of it in all of his dealings with the new owners, and we thank him immensely for that.

In my first communication with the new owners this past Wednesday (4/1/2020), I was informed of three potential options to remain with the Dark Matter Digital Network, none of which would see me remain as the Monday-Friday host of Midnight in the Desert. These three options were, in the opinion of this particular member of the ownership group that I spoke to, very fair options to Michelle and myself going forward. I asked to have until Friday night to make a decision as to which option, if any, I would want to take. I needed time to wrap my head around what was happening and to consult with those closest to me, including Michelle.

During that time, I still hosted Midnight in the Desert as if nothing was happening on both April 1 and April 2. Let me tell you, it’s hard to go on the air and give your absolute best in that situation, but I like to consider myself a professional so that’s what I did. I was fully prepared that tonight, April 3, could be my last night as host of MITD.

I awoke this morning to an email from the new owner that I spoke with informing both Michelle and myself that “you are both being released of your positions and are no longer with DMDN effective immediately.”

Now, my full intention was to speak with this person tonight prior to this evening’s show, as previously agreed, and inform him that I didn’t think I would want to continue in a lesser position and that I don’t agree with the direction they envision. You can believe me or not; it’s easy to say “they fired me right before I could quit,” but that’s the case. I was going to offer to remain as host until their planned relaunch date in order to do the right thing, but apparently, they’ve decided that relaunch will be tonight instead of a few months down the road.

I wish them the best with their new plans and new direction, but I just wanted to be completely transparent about what transpired with this move.

So what happens with Michelle and I now? Well, we are still committed to our vision of what great late-night talk radio should be. And with that said, we have put together a dream team of people to help us create something fresh, something new, that we know you will love and hopefully come and support. There will be a full announcement coming this weekend, but for now, please stick with us here in this group to get the big news as soon as we’re ready to announce it (the group name is in the process of being changed to reflect the new direction).

Thank you to everyone who tuned in, supported both myself and the program even before I was involved, even before Michelle was involved, and hopefully, you will check out what we’ve got planned.

Talk to you all again VERY soon,

Tim and Michelle