Random Midweek Update

We guess the Mighty Blog of Fun(tm) is not very organized this holiday week...and this may well be our last update before the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday...

CLOSING IN ON A HOME: Though it's technically a service and not a radio station, OMW has occasionally carried items about Akron's WCRS.

Those aren't FCC call letters - the acronym "WCRS" stands for "Written Communications Radio Service", otherwise known as the Akron-based radio reading service for the blind. In a previous life, WCRS was TCRRS - the "Tri-County Radio Reading Service" - and your Primary Editorial Voice(tm) may have volunteered there as a teenager.

We lost track of the story the past couple of years, where it took a rather terrifying turn, with loss of operating funding, state scrunity, and problems linked to the foreclosure of the former East Akron Rollercade on East Market Street, where WCRS' studios have been located. After a recent sheriff's sale, the building's out-of-town owner is kicking out the reading service folks.

WAKR/AkronNewsNow's Craig Simpson has the update in a story put out Tuesday. As it turns out, WCRS officials are now scouting out two potential sites - one not far from the Rollercade - hoping to find a new home sometime in the next month.

WCRS has had quite a harrowing ride in recent years, with even some legal hot water for the woman who started it all, long-time executive director Marcia Jonke.

All that's detailed in this Akron Beacon Journal article from last week.

WCRS is now under control of a new board of directors, and is being run by station manager and new board president David Binkley - who told the Beacon he managed to reduce the operation's sizable debts, and says WCRS will pay for whatever new space it finds.

WCRS' output is carried over a subcarrier of the University of Akron's WZIP/88.1, with special receivers needed to hear the programmming. WZIP has been a creditor for WCRS as well, but the Beacon story says WZIP has forgiven half the debt owed by the reading service...

NOD TO CHUCK: We didn't mention yet that long-time OMW reader Chuck Matthews has actually done something few have managed to do recently in the radio business - pick up new work.

Chuck has climbed aboard with Elyria-Lorain Broadcasting's Sandusky operation, with part-time production, on-air, voicetrack, board op and other work for ELB country WKFM/96.1 "K96" Huron and sports WLKR/1510 Norwalk "ESPN 1510", among other things, we're sure.

The former Cumulus talk WTOD/1560 Toledo program director continues to run his voiceover business, and continues to consult Matrix talk WNWT/1520, from his new perch in Vacationland...