From: radioacti...@gmail.com   
      
   This is simply dreadful news, Tom, but I'm nonetheless grateful you so   
   promptly posted it.   
      
   This Ian Punnett fellow was far and away the best host the syndicated   
   pseudoscience talk radio program Coast to Coast ever had--an overnight   
   production much more accurately described as "Hoax to Hoax" ever since the   
   late Art Bell founded it in 1992.   
      
   The late Punnett was always genial in tone, and downright smart-as-a-tack--and   
   thus I wonder how much of the non-stop malarky his guests nightly doled out to   
   the ever-gullible C-to-C fan base Punnett ever actually bought into.  (Of   
   course, it's a lot    
   easier for a talk host to maintain a straight face in the face of nonstop,   
   physics-defying nonsense on radio than on television.)   
      
   Punnett was also blessed with a charming vocal timbre, and (unlike most of   
   Bell's many successors on the show) always demonstrated top-notch broadcasting   
   skills while dispensing all that severely-silly subject matter the format of   
   the long-dominant    
   national program demanded.   
      
   Though one DOES wonder how many of those hundreds of C-to-C affiliates would   
   have purchased C-to-C--even for, say, a paltry $25/week--IF the preposterous   
   program wasn't distributed gratis, like virtually all syndicated talk radio   
   is.  Yep, it didn't cost    
   the local stations carrying it even a dime, and thusly C-to-C displaced   
   HUNDREDS* of top-notch local shows hosted by guys and gals (often WAY more   
   talented than little ol' me) who actually expect to be paid for their   
   efforts.**  (Syndicated shows make    
   their money via their imbedded commercial spots, along with a couple other   
   never-publicized income streams their parent syndication companies drum up.***)   
      
   I always hoped to run into Sir Punnett at one of the many pro radio   
   conventions I attended over the decades around The Lower 48, but alas,  that   
   never happened; I longed to rhapsodize to him in person how he represented a   
   hugely talented hosting    
   exception on a national show that otherwise is profoundly a national   
   broadcasting embarrassment.   
      
   And yes, I'm EXTREMELY biased here...as significant (and far-and-away my   
   favorite) portions of my own commercial newstalk radio hosting career   
   1989-2013 were in that long-neglected (and sometimes even ridiculed) broadcast   
   time-slot known as "overnights".   
      
   BRYAN STYBLE/Florida   
   ===================   
   * If your syndicated show is on 600 stations, it ipso facto means 599 former   
   local-yokel hosts are reduced to mere lowly-listener (or caller) status.   
   ** An unfortunate, genre-corrosive fact few loyal late-night talk radio   
   listeners ever realize, as that free-to-carry arrangement is something   
   industry insiders only voice amongst themselves, and NEVER during media   
   interviews.   
   ***  This is the dirty BIG secret of syndicated radio.  Consider this:    
   recurrently over the decades, whenever some hard-core talk radio fan would   
   meet me--at some house party, a station event or just on the street--and was   
   conversationally curious about    
   the talk radio biz once they learned I was a local talk radio yakker, I would   
   LOVE posing this hypothetical:  "Please think about this for a moment, and   
   then estimate how much you imagine your local station pays for the right to   
   air a standard Mon-Fri/3-   
   hour call-in program out of New York, L.A. or D.C., such as Michael Medved's,   
   Dennis Prager's or Art Bell's.  After a few moments pondering the question,   
   their estimates would ALWAYS minimally be in the $1000-$5000 range per   
   week--at least for the    
   largest, strongest-signal "heritage" local stations--and several times I even   
   got a guestimate number of $50,000/week.  And in all my years of posing   
   this--often ALSO offering up the huge hint that "It's a rather round   
   number"--NOT ONE person ever    
   responded with the correct answer:  "$0".   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)