Talk to an audience on radio, television or a podcast feed, and hold their attention without seeing them.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
The median pay is about $47,340 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $28,190 at the lower end to about $138,440 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
2 to 4 years after high school, on the usual route.
$3,200 to $44,500 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no license to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Limited demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$47,340
Bottom tenth
$28,190
Top tenth
$138,440
The national median is $47,340 a year. The bottom tenth earn $28,190 or less and the top tenth $138,440 or more, in 2025 figures. Read that carefully: these yearly figures assume full-time hours, and many announcers are paid by the shift or the hour and do not work full time all year, so what they take home in a year can be lower.
$13.55 to $17.00 an hour
What the bottom tenth to bottom quarter of announcers and disc jockeys earn, 2025
Weekend and overnight shifts at small market stations are the usual start, and many people start part-time while working another job.
$81,310 a year
The median in New York, the highest of any state
Maryland ($74,480) and New Jersey ($70,800) come next. South Carolina is the lowest, at $30,960. The top tenth nationally earn $138,440 or more: morning hosts and anchors in large cities and play-by-play voices for pro teams are at this end, and those jobs are few. Do not plan a career on the assumption that you will get one.
Roughly, all in
$3,200 to $44,500
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a one year community college broadcasting certificate plus a decent microphone, interface and headphones to record at home. The high end is a four year journalism or communications degree at an in state public university. A demo reel costs nothing if you record it at a campus station, and the reel is what actually gets you hired. Borrowing heavily here is risky, because starting pay is low and the industry is shrinking, so file the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) and take the grants rather than the loans.
File the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) for Pell Grants and federal loans. Borrowing heavily for this field is risky, because starting pay is low and the industry is shrinking.
Hourly or per shift
The normal arrangement for part-time announcers and weekend hosts.
Salary with a contract
Full-time hosts and anchors, usually on two or three year contracts.
Appearance and commercial work
Voicing advertisements, hosting events and reading sponsor copy adds income.
Your own podcast or stream
Ad revenue and subscriptions, tiny at first, and a genuine route for some people now.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Nobody hires you off a transcript. They hire you off a recording of you doing the job.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Speech, drama, English and journalism. Start a podcast now. It costs almost nothing and it is the reel.
Campus or community station
From year one
A college radio or television station is the single most valuable thing in this path. Some journalism schools operate full commercial stations staffed by students.
Certificate or degree
1 to 4 years
A one year broadcasting certificate or a four year journalism or communications degree. Neither is legally required, but most newsroom jobs expect the degree.
Internship and a demo reel
During school
Three to five minutes of your best work: a newscast, an interview, a live read. This is what gets listened to.
First small market job
2 to 3 years
Overnight or weekend shifts in a town you have never heard of. Two or three years there, then a bigger market.
English
You write almost everything you say.
Drama or speech
Breath control, pacing and not freezing when something goes wrong.
Journalism
Where the facts come from, and how to check them.
Government or history
You cannot explain the news if you do not know how anything works.
A second language
Spanish language stations are a large and growing part of the industry.
The Federal Communications Commission licenses broadcast stations and regulates what can go out over the air, including rules on indecency, political advertising and sponsorship disclosure. There is no license or exam for the person holding the microphone. What can end a career instead is breaking those station rules, so what you say on air is the employer's legal problem as well as yours.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Editing your own audio and video
Stations expect one person to report, record, edit and post. That is the job now.
Play-by-play
Sports is a steady corner of live broadcasting. Call high school games to learn it.
Social media and short video
Your audience numbers off air are now part of your value on air.
Voice-over work
Commercials, audiobooks and narration can be done from a closet at home.
A published reel and a personal site
Make it easy for a program director to hear you in under a minute.
Student awards
The Radio Television Digital News Association runs student awards that hiring managers recognize.
Willingness to move anywhere
The people who get hired are the ones who will take the job in a town of 30,000.
A thick skin
Audience feedback is public, immediate and often personal.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
In at 4am for a morning show. Read overnight wires, pick stories, write them in spoken English, check the weather and traffic. On air you talk, run the console, take calls and hit every break on the second. After the show you cut commercials, record promotions, post clips and plan tomorrow. Then you go to a station event at a car dealership, because that is part of the job too.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Station groups record a host's links in advance and drop them into local broadcasts, a practice known as voice tracking. It is one reason there are fewer on air jobs.
Broadcast stations east of the Mississippi River generally have call signs starting with W and those west of it start with K, a convention set in the early days of American radio licensing.
O*NET OnLine (the Department of Labor's occupation database) counted about 21,800 broadcast announcers and radio disc jockeys in 2025 and projects employment to decline by 2035, with about 2,000 openings a year.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Writing and media first, then the rest of the field. See every career in creative.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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