Sony Music Nashville Dir./Radio Marketing & Promotion Anna Widmer has joined Riser House as VP/Promotion, effective at the beginning of September. She will work alongside fellow VP/Promotion Jeff Davis and Dir./Regional Promotion Paul Grosser as the team prepares to release Mitchell Tenpenny's first radio single on the imprint. “Anna is an absolute superstar who works tirelessly on behalf of her artists and radio partners, and her body of work is truly a benchmark for excellence,” says EVP/Promotion & Artist Brand Strategy Shane Allen. Widmer joined SMN in 2023 after nine years at MCA (CAT 8/16/23). Plans for the open position at Sony will be announced soon.

Dog Day(ton) Of Summer: Here are select Nielsen Audio Continuous Diary Measurement (CDM) ratings for July 2026 (three-month rolling average, 4/30-7/22) compared with May and June. Ranks (in parentheses) are among subscribers. Unless otherwise noted, all figures are Persons 12+, Monday-Sunday, 6am-midnight.

Morris Higham Managment Chairman Dale Morris died Aug. 21 at the age of 89. After starting his career as a songwriter, landing a top five hit with Johnny Paycheck's “Don’t Monkey With Another Monkey’s Monkey,” Morris founded booking agency Dale Morris & Associates and then Morris Artist Management with Alabama as his first client more than four decades ago, going on to handle the careers of Kenny Chesney, Old Dominion, Martina McBride, Jake Owen, Big & Rich, Gretchen Wilson, Dailey & Vincent, Greylan James and Barbara and Louise Mandrell, among others. His business expanded to many related ventures, including record labels Treehouse and WeBlast, Dale Morris Productions, Morris Light & Sound,, and More American Hospitality, which he co-founded in 2014 to manage resort and entertainment opportunities, including Nashville's Fontanel (which he co-owned at the time) and the Deadwood (SD) Mountain Grand (CAT 7/2/14). He sold Morris Artist Management to Front Line Management in 2009 (CAT 5/13/09) and Dale Morris & Associates to Paradigm Talent Agency in 2018 (CAT 11/25/18).

Morris Higham Management Pres. Clint Higham says Morris was "larger than life, and never met a dream he couldn’t build ... He saw things in people, in me, in Kenny, and inspired everyone to reach beyond what we thought possible ... He lived a big, bold, beautiful, blessed life, and I’m holding onto that right now. It’s the end of an era.”

Morris was inducted into the International Entertainment Buyers Association’s Hall of Fame in 2010 and, in 2014, received the Tony Martell Lifetime Entertainment Achievement Award from the T.J. Martell Foundation (CAT 3/11/14). A Celebration of Life will be planned for later this fall. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Read his 2009 feature in The Interview here.