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Thursday, April 4, 2019

Survey: Radio News Salaries Growing Slower Than TV

The latest RTDNA/Lawrence Herbert School of Communication - Hofstra University Annual Survey found that local television news salaries rose by 3.1% in 2018, just over the U.S. average hourly wage gain of 3% for 2018. With inflation remaining low at 1.9%, real wage growth in local TV news hit 1.2%.



TV news wage growth for 2018 was up four-tenths of a point from last year’s 2.7% increase.

Local TV news salaries look better on the average with salaries for 80% of TV news jobs increasing and just 20% decreasing. Of median salaries, which are more indicative of typical pay, half increased with a quarter each decreasing or staying the same.

After 6 straight years of overall salary increases ahead of inflation, the big, long-term salary picture looks better than ever. Overall, TV news salaries have risen at twice the rate of inflation over the last 5 years, and nearly all positions have done better than inflation. Is your position coming out ahead?

The survey found that local radio news salaries rose by 1.7% from last year. That’s down from last year’s 2.8% increase. Factor in low inflation of 1.9%, and radio salaries almost held even over the last year, with a loss against inflation of 0.2%.


While it was a largely stagnant year overall, some positions fared much better than others.

With just a couple exceptions, five-year comparisons look strong, with overall salary growth well ahead of inflation for most radio news positions. Aided by the disastrous year of 2009, the 10-year comparison is strong across the board.

This is only the second year in a row where overall radio news salaries have exceeded inflation in a five-year comparison, at least for quite a few years. Ten-year comparisons have been stronger, but that’s heavily based on some very low salaries a decade ago.

Overall, non-commercial salaries are 37.4% higher than commercial ones, but that’s not quite a fair comparison. The vast majority of non-commercial stations surveyed are in large and major markets.

Using median (or more typical) salaries, non-commercial radio salaries come out 23.6% higher than commercial radio salaries – just looking at comparable market sizes.

Average starting pay in radio increased a whopping $3,300 after increasing $500 last year, $600 the year before and $700 the year before that.

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