A survey of radio news salaries showed a 2.5% decline compared to last year’s survey, led by a substantial drop among noncommercial stations.
Conducted late last year, the survey by the Radio Television Digital News Association and the Newhouse School at Syracuse University found that noncommercial radio news salaries in large and major markets fell 8% compared to the previous survey, conducted in late 2022. Meanwhile, commercial radio news salaries in those markets rose more than 23%.
The authors received survey responses from 631 radio news directors and GMs, representing 1,902 stations. Participation declined from the previous year, when the survey’s authors received responses from 777 radio news directors and GMs, representing 2,514 stations.
The study, released July 19, looked at average and median salaries for four positions: news director, news reporter, news producer and news anchor. Noncommercial stations trailed their commercial counterparts in average salary for all four positions but led in median pay for all but news director salary.
“Historically, non-commercial radio salaries have been substantially higher than commercial radio salaries,” the report said. “This year, that’s not the case.”
The noncommercial news anchor average and median salaries in large and major markets dropped substantially between the 2023 and 2024 surveys. The average fell from $70,000 to $53,800, and the median dropped from $65,500 to $59,000.
The average salary for noncommercial news directors fell from $75,900 last year to $66,700, while the median dropped from $65,000 to $63,000. Noncommercial reporter salaries dropped from an average of $53,000 to $47,200, while the median dropped from $50,000 to $47,500. The noncommercial producer average and median salaries rose slightly.
The survey also found that starting average and median salaries are about $10,000 higher among noncommercial stations than among commercial stations.
Overall, a higher percentage of noncommercial stations provided benefits than commercial stations in all but one benefits category surveyed. The benefit provided most by noncommercial stations is paid time off, with nearly 84% of noncommercial stations surveyed offering the benefit compared to 75% of commercial stations. Thirteen percent of noncommercial stations surveyed said they offer no benefits to employees.
One would think a lot of this *could* be explained by numerous pubmedia outlets (and/or their parent colleges/universities) not giving any COLA adjustments either last year, the year before, or both of the previous years.