RTDNA Finds Radio News Salaries Head Backwards by 11.5%

RADIO ONLINE | Wednesday, July 24, 2024 | 3:22pm CT

Radio Television Digital News Association

After three years of meager salary increases -- all of which lagged inflation -- is worse in 2024. According to the the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA), overall radio salaries actually fell 2.5%. With inflation at 3.1% for the year, that means real wages dropped by 5.6%. But why they fell may surprise you. In terms of real wages (actual wages minus inflation), radio salaries lost 0.5% in 2021, 6.6% in 2022, 1.9% in 2023, and 2.5% in 2024. That's a total wage loss of 11.5% over the last four years.

There is some good news in radio salaries. For News Directors, the median salary stayed the same, but the average salary went up 6.7%. Reporters are also mixed, with the average salary dropping 0.9%, but the median salary is going up 12.5%. News producers did even better with average salary up 5% and median salary up 10.4%. But that's where the good news stops. News anchor, sports anchor and sports reporter all lost ground in both average and median salaries. Web producer/editor dropped slightly on average and held even on median.

Now we see more clearly what's happening in radio salaries. Historically, non-commercial radio salaries have been substantially higher than commercial radio salaries. This year, that's not the case. When RTDNA looked at large and major markets, all the average commercial salaries are higher than non-commercial salaries, and median salaries are fairly close. But the actual story is what took place between last year and this year.

Overall, commercial radio salaries -- for the four positions above in large and major markets -- went up a whopping 23.5%. Non-commercial salaries went down 8% from a year ago. So the drop in radio news salaries lies almost entirely in the non-commercial world.