Layoffs Hit WTOP, D.C.’s Perennial Top-Rated Radio Station

WTOP and its sibling station, WFED, laid off four employees, according to Washingtonian, which added that General Manager Joel Oxley told staffers it also will not fill five open jobs.

According to the report, Digital chief John Meyer, evening producer and transportation reporter Ari Ashe, WFED host Francis Rose, and producer Matt Wingfield lost their jobs, Oxley writes in the memo. Additionally, WTOP will not fill the spot reporter Andrew Mollenbeck is vacating to move to Los Angeles, the digital position Kerry Walter left earlier this year, or three open sales jobs.

“Our financial situation continues to be very challenging,” Oxley writes, saying revenue is down in several areas of advertising, and “costs that we cannot control continue to rise.”

WTOP is perennially the top-rated station in the region.