Contents
- Radio broadcasting employment statistics: U.S. station jobs and occupational wages
- Radio broadcasting employment statistics: announcer jobs and outlook
- Radio broadcasting employment statistics: EU country counts
- Radio broadcasting employment statistics: Croatian stations and counties
- Radio broadcasting employment statistics: Canadian station staffing over time
- Sources
Radio broadcasting employment statistics: U.S. station jobs and occupational wages
U.S. radio broadcasting stations employed about 52,680 people in May 2024, with an annual mean wage of $68,900 across the industry. Those figures describe employment and wages in the radio broadcasting stations industry; they are not a count of everyone in a radio-related occupation across all industries.
The largest occupations show how varied station work is. Broadcast announcers and radio disc jockeys accounted for 13,710 jobs, while advertising sales agents accounted for 7,510. Producers and directors numbered 5,500, and broadcast technicians 3,850. The same occupational table reports annual mean wages alongside job counts:
| Occupation at U.S. radio broadcasting stations | Employment, May 2024 | Annual mean wage |
|---|---|---|
| Broadcast announcers and radio disc jockeys | 13,710 | $62,330 |
| Advertising sales agents | 7,510 | $76,210 |
| Producers and directors | 5,500 | $67,450 |
| Broadcast technicians | 3,850 | $44,380 |
| General and operations managers | 2,820 | $100,180 |
| News analysts, reporters, and journalists | 1,830 | $63,860 |
| General office clerks | 1,630 | $38,590 |
These are annual mean wages for the listed occupations within radio broadcasting stations, in U.S. dollars. They are not medians and should not be read as pay rates for every worker in an occupation. The overall industry mean also combines roles with substantially different wages and job counts. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ May 2024 radio-station figures provide the underlying industry total and occupation table.
Radio broadcasting employment statistics: announcer jobs and outlook
A separate BLS measure counts the occupation across industries. In 2025, broadcast announcers and radio disc jockeys held about 21,800 U.S. jobs. That occupational total is broader than the 13,710 announcer and disc jockey jobs reported within radio broadcasting stations in May 2024: the figures have different reference years and scopes, so they should not be treated as a direct year-over-year comparison.
For the broader U.S. announcer and DJ occupation group, employment is projected to decline 3% from 2025 to 2035. At the same time, the BLS projects about 3,700 openings per year on average over that decade. Annual openings can occur even when total employment is projected to fall; the openings figure is not a forecast of net job growth.
The median hourly wage for broadcast announcers and radio disc jockeys was $22.76 in May 2025. This is an occupation-wide U.S. median, not the annual mean wage for announcers employed specifically by radio stations in the 2024 industry table. The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook reports the 2025 occupational employment and wage measures and the 2025–2035 projection.
Radio broadcasting employment statistics: EU country counts
Radio broadcasting enterprises employed 30,000 persons in the European Union in 2022, according to Eurostat. Spain reported the largest count among the five countries listed, at 5,550, followed by Germany at 5,010. France had 2,815, Romania 2,510, and Italy 2,469. Eurostat identifies the country figures as provisional.
At the lower end of the country counts reported, Slovakia had 53 persons employed in radio broadcasting, Lithuania 87, Czechia 100, Estonia 110, and Sweden 163. These figures describe persons employed in the radio broadcasting sector in each country; they are not audience measures or counts of stations.
Absolute counts give one view of sector size, while employment shares put those counts in the context of each country’s overall workforce. In 2022, radio-sector employment represented 0.05% of total employment in Croatia and 0.04% in Slovenia, Cyprus, and Greece. The percentage comparison is a separate measure from the country headcounts. Eurostat’s 2022 radio broadcasting report gives the EU total, country counts, and employment-share observations.
Radio broadcasting employment statistics: Croatian stations and counties
Croatia’s official radio and television broadcasting statistics offer a narrower view: employment at licensed radio stations in 2023. The national table records 1,271 persons in employment at radio stations, of whom 639 were women. It separately reports 1,095 people directly engaged in producing radio programmes, including 509 women.
The table also reports 245 full-time persons in employment, including 106 women. This full-time figure is a category in the station employment table; it should not be substituted for the total workforce count. The programme-production count is another distinct category and should not be added to the total as though it represented an additional group of employees.
County figures illustrate how station employment was distributed geographically. Zagreb County reported 56 persons in employment at radio stations in 2023. Among the other counties listed in the checked figures, Sisak-Moslavina reported 39, Virovitica-Podravina 38, Primorje-Gorski kotar 37, and Bjelovar-Bilogora 34. Varaždin reported 30, Koprivnica-Križevci 27, Lika-Senj 27, Krapina-Zagorje 26, and Karlovac 19.
These are counts of people in employment at radio stations by county, not population-adjusted rates. They also reflect the report’s licensed-station scope and 2023 reference year. Croatia’s Radio and Television Broadcasting, 2023 report includes the national and county table, including the categories for women, full-time employment, and programme production.
Radio broadcasting employment statistics: Canadian station staffing over time
Statistics Canada reports a weekly average of 9,091 employees in the Canadian radio broadcasting stations industry in 2025, 157 fewer than in 2024. The industry measure includes private, public, and non-commercial stations. Its weekly-average basis differs from a single-date employment count.
For private stations specifically, the weekly average was 6,174 staff in 2025. Statistics Canada compares that with 7,920 in 1976, the first year it tracked the data. Private-station staffing was higher in the more recent historical observations cited: 10,213 in 2007, rising to a reported record of 10,521 in 2011, then 10,286 in 2013. Those points show that the 2025 private-station average was below the cited 2007–2013 counts, but the observations alone do not establish why staffing changed.
The national 2025 figure and the private-station historical series have different scopes: one covers the broader industry, while the other is explicitly limited to private stations. The 2025 and 1976 private-station figures are reported as weekly averages; the cited 2007, 2011, and 2013 figures are described as staff counts in Statistics Canada’s account. Statistics Canada’s radio industry report presents the 2025 employment figure and the historical private-station comparisons.