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More than 20 staff members are no longer employed by WISH-TV Channel 8 after management instructed employees to sign a contract addendum featuring revised noncompete language.
Kat Webber, who was hired on a three-year contract as a news producer in May 2024, said she believes the station’s actions equate to “wrongful termination.”
Webber was one of the workers who didn’t sign the addendum presented by WISH-TV’s parent company, Circle City Broadcasting LLC. According to documents reviewed by IBJ, existing contracts include an agreement that employees will not work for competing radio and television stations for one year after concluding their tenure at the station.
The revision prevents employees from working for an expanded list of companies—including news websites, podcasts and social media channels–for one year after leaving WISH-TV. The deadline to sign the contract was Sept. 3.
“A lot of us decided that we weren’t going to sign it, specifically because in our original contract it states that there weren’t going to be any addendums at all,” Webber said.
She shared with IBJ a photograph of part of her original contract that states, “This agreement will not be amended, modified or supplemented other than in a writing signed by the parties hereto.”
Attempts to reach representatives of Circle City Broadcasting were unsuccessful.
IBJ communicated with 14 WISH-TV employees who quit or were fired last week. Most declined to be interviewed for this report. Since Sept. 3, the WISH website deleted profiles of five anchors and reporters: Kody Fisher, Felicia Michelle, Brittany Noble, Reyna Revelle and Kyla Russell.
Guillermo Lithgow, who was hired on a two-year contract as a photographer in November 2024, said he was fired after declining to sign the addendum.
“It kind of put people in a pickle,” Lithgow said of the addendum. “With me, for example, they don’t pay photographers a lot. The salary is very low. I have different sources of income by freelancing on the side. This would basically prevent that from happening.”
Webber and Lithgow said they believe Circle City Broadcasting was motivated to present the noncompete addendum because of litigation involving a former station meteorologist.
After a monthslong back-and-forth, a Marion County court late last week ruled that a previous WISH noncompete clause was unenforceable after Ashley Brown sued the company amid a new job search.
Brown, who worked at WISH from 2017 to early 2025, filed the lawsuit against Circle City Broadcasting in July, claiming that the noncompete language in her contract was overly broad.
The contract, signed in 2022, stated that, for one year after her employment ends for any reason, Brown could not accept employment “involving the rendering of any services, (including electronic media) whether or not for compensation, live or recorded, over the facilities of any radio or commercial television station” within the Indianapolis market.
Brown argued that the inability to offer “any services” extended beyond her role as a meteorologist and instead prevented her from accepting employment from any competitor, regardless of the job.
In August, the trial court denied Circle City Broadcasting’s request for arbitration, which the broadcasting company quickly appealed. The Marion County court delayed its ruling in Brown’s lawsuit until Sept. 5, when the appeals court was expected to make its ruling. The appeals court denied the company’s request for arbitration on Sept. 4, at which point the trial court made its ruling in Brown’s favor.
“Restricting work that ‘involves’ the rendering of live or recorded media goes well beyond restricting the performance of the same time of work Ms. Brown was previously doing at CCB,” the court’s ruling reads. “For example, working in a research, writing or production role would be employment involving the rendering of media even if Ms. Brown was not the face of that media.”
Indiana Lawyer reporter Maura Johnson contributed to this report.
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Its a “cutthroat business.” This episode only demonstrates just how much. The days of the local news and the interconnectedness that was once there is not any longer. Companies that treat their employees like mere commodities are a bane to society as a whole.
The only throat being cut is WISH’s by its current owner.
It’s the lowest station on the totem pole in this market thanks to not having a major network affiliation.
I would defer to those in the local news business but from what we hear in the media, it appears the worst run as well.
Congrats to the employees who refused to sign the covenants not to compete. Covenants not to compete place employers who use them in an unfair and unwarranted power position, which allows employers to beome lazy and miserly in their treatment of employees, since they know that they have them trapped.
If an employer can not keep his employees through the salary, benfits and atmosphere that he offers to them, he probably deserves to lose them.
They are also bad for the economy. The miracle of the many sucessful start up companies in Silicon Vally and the attendant ecomomic growth they created is due largely to the fact that California does not permit covenants not to compete.
“Noncompete clauses” only prove the employer is not willing to be competitive! Not for compensation, benefits, talent, promotion, culture, or quality of life.
Always walk when your employer admits they’re not going to try to keep you there with anything other than the threat of a lawsuit.
Looks like the attorney who drafted the original non compete clause screwed up.
WISH Tv channel 8 still exists ? It is not on my Antenna’s broadcast channel search function , it isn’t on Directv either . It really is a non-compete company .
I can only watch WISH8 on 2 of my 3 antennae TV’s , their broadcast is not strong enough for my north facing antenna. Before digital it was the strongest broadcast. But I still watch daily, a good news and sports station!
I am glad to see both Ashley and now Felicia gone. Both were too self important with entitled egos.