Townsquare Media Parts With 65 Employees

Townsquare Media late Monday announced a reduction in force that saw 65 employees let go.

The staffers included 26 corporate employees with the others from acorss the company’s 67 local markets. Among those let go are account execs, on-air personnel, digital employees, directors of sales, engineers and other positions.

“The decision to let these employees go was based on a number of factors, the most important being my belief that reducing our overall workforce was necessary to protect our business and the remaining team moving forward,” CEO Bill Wilson stated in a companywide memo.

In addition to the layoffs, nearly 20 senior executives have volunteered to take a 10% temporary pay reduction. Executives taking the pay cut include CEO Bill Wilson, CFO Stu Rosenstein, COO Erik Hellum, Senior VP of Human Resources Alyssa Goldberg, Executive VP of Finance Operations & Technology Scott Schatz, Executive VP of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications Claire Yenicay among others.

In addition, Townsquare has suspended its 401K company match, effective April 1.

Like other companies, Townsquare is feeling the brunt of advertiser cancellations due to parts of the U.S. economy virtually shutting down from government restrictions to slow the spread of the highly contagious virus. April in particular is expected to especially troublesome.

Wilson also hinted that the company may need to make other expense reductions, depending on how the economic situation plays out, but that his goal is not to do another workforce reduction.