Good news: TV salaries beat inflation

By Bob Papper and Keren Henderson

July 11, 2024 — After two critical years of falling well behind inflation, TV news salaries made up a fair amount of that shortfall. The latest RTDNA/Newhouse School at Syracuse University Survey found that local television news salaries rose by 7.5% in 2023. That is ahead of the last couple years, and well ahead of inflation, which was up 3.1% in 2023. That means real TV news wages rose by 4.4% in 2023.

Producers and MMJs combine for 44% of unfilled jobs. Producers come out on top at 23% with MMJs at 21%. News anchors, reporters and anchor/reporters come in at 19%. Then photographers at 9%, digital at 7% and weather and assorted management positions (news director, assistant news director, EP) both at 6%. Production positions come in at 5% with production assistants, sports and video editors filling out the rest.
How big is the problem? Not every news director responds to the survey, and not every news director who does identifies every open position, but the group that did identified more than 500 specific open slots. 

Median — or typical — salaries are the best gauge for what’s going on, and they show that 16 of the 20 positions in the list above are up in salary compared to last year. Only photographer, digital content manager and web/mobile writer/producer went down in salary. If we look at average salaries, the picture is slightly better — with just two salaries down (assignment editor and web/mobile writer/producer). 

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About the Authors

Bob Papper is Research Professor of Broadcast and Digital Journalism at Syracuse University and has worked extensively in radio and TV news. 

Keren Henderson is Associate Professor of Broadcast and Digital Journalism at Syracuse University. 

This research was supported by the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and the Radio Television Digital News Association.

About the Survey

The RTDNA/Newhouse School at Syracuse University Survey was conducted in the fourth quarter of 2023 among all 1,876 operating, non-satellite television stations and a random sample of 4,764 radio stations. The television response rate is different for every question, but Valid responses came from as many as 1,387 television stations (73.9%) and 631 radio news directors and general managers representing 1,902 radio stations. Some data sets (e.g. the number of TV stations originating local news, getting news from others and women TV news directors) are based on a complete census and are not projected from a smaller sample.