Thursday Tidbits

A few late week tidbits for you...

UPDATE 10/27/08 5:35 PM: From Morrison's agent, Steve Swienckowski from the David Crane Agency:

"All charges related to a July incident involving former WUPW Meteorologist Mike Morrison have been dismissed, and all references on his record have been expunged.

That is the ruling of a court in Toledo as of today. "

BAD WEATHER: OMW hears that WUPW/36 "Fox Toledo" chief meteorologist Mike Morrison is "no longer in the building".

Morrison was arrested early Sunday morning at a downtown Toledo nightspot, reports the Toledo Blade:

According to police, several restaurant patrons saw a man urinating on a van owned by Sounds of Music, a disc-jockey company.

Police said the man, identified as Mr. Morrison, became verbally abusive when he was asked to stop and refused six times to provide police with identification, a report said.

The Blade says Morrison pleaded not guilty Monday to three charges linked to the incident, public indecency, intoxication, and resisting arrest.

And as we mentioned, the forecast of seeing him again on "Fox Toledo" is quite dim...

PROMOTED: It's a happier forecast for a key figure at a locally-based radio syndication company, who's been promoted.

Beachwood-based Envision Radio Networks ups affiliate relations director Rebecca Pixley to VP of its new sales division. Pixley will continue to handle affiliate relations for large markets.

The local syndicator has its hands in a large number of radio projects, including short-form and long-form programs in all sorts of formats...

A WORD FOR FILL-INS: It's summer, which means local radio personalities often have fill-in hosts handling a week or more worth of shows for them.

We'd like to make one request, based on hearing a couple of talk radio fill-ins in the past few weeks.

Can you please, please, please, tell us who you are? And that you're filling in for the host?

We make the plea after hearing the vacation fill-in for Clear Channel talk WHLO/640 Akron late afternoon host Matt Patrick a week or two back.

The voice sounded familiar, but it took a good 15 minutes into the fill-in host's opening monologue before we picked up a clue to the name of the host...it was WJW/8 "FOX 8" weekend weatherman Brad Sussman, a frequent local fill-in in the Northeast Ohio Clear Channel universe.

Brad? This isn't TV, and there's no "Brad Sussman / Fill-In Host" graphic in front of the radio... and though you do fill-in fairly often, we didn't quite pick up your voice at first. (We also don't know if Sussman was doing the WKDD part of Matt Patrick's schedule that week.)

Then, we heard a voice we did not recognize filling in for NextMedia talk WHBC/1480 Canton's Jim Albright a week or two ago. This host did eventually say his name, but we didn't recognize it (John Hanson? Hansen? Or was it something else?).

We're kind of old school when it comes to identifying yourself on the radio...say the name, the show name and station name often.

Maybe we were the only frustrated listeners out there...

SPEAKING OF WHBC: The station, as expected, is "going all out" as Canton enters its most important time of the year...with the Pro Football Hall of Fame Ceremonies and all that comes with that.

With Mr. Albright's return, we've heard the station promoting a number of live remotes, starting this Friday, related to HOF events.

And Albright and mid-morning host Ron Ponder will take part in a number of off-air HOF related events as well, as will morning drive hosts Fred Chenevey and Pam Cook.

The station seems comfortable with Albright doing afternoon drive, when he basically seemed to be pushed into just "filling the time slot" immediately after the departure of Brady Russell.

The long-time former host of Akron market talker WNIR/100.1's "Dating Show" was doing off-air work on Market South, when NextMedia apparently realized they had a veteran talk host actually in the building, and started a Saturday morning show with Albright...a show we believe Albright still does, even after his promotion to weekday afternoon drive...

ION DAYTON: TV Newsday reports that the ION TV folks are touting a new affiliation in Dayton.

Low-power outlet WRCX-LP 40 has picked up the network, which developed out of the old "PAX TV".

The station touts the ION affiliation in a promo seen on its website, which calls the station "Dayton's Urban Vision". The promo would indicate that WRCX is now calling itself "ION 40".

We've written about this LPTVer before, when it became the Dayton market affiliate of the Cleveland Cavaliers Television Network...