Full-time radio news staffs of two pay little better than those with only one, but Table 1 shows a notable increase for staffs of three or more. Categorizing staffs by totals including part-timers yields little pay differentiation. Regionally, salaries were generally slightly higher in the East and West than in the South and Midwest. Nationally, all markets considered, the principal positions pay a little more than twice as well in television as radio news. News salaries are lower in both television and radio than at daily newspapers.
Separate research relates TV's underpay to an oversupply of entry-level job applicants in TV news.
The ratio was about 10 seeking jobs to every one getting a job in TV vs. 4 to 1 for daily newspapers and 3 to 1 in radio. Well, take a look at salaries of journalism graduates whom the Becker research group surveyed in their first year on the job in 1998. The median rather than the mean is the best indicator of the typical salary, what the station in the middle pays. But the mean is useful for comparison with the median. When the mean is larger, as is most often the case, a few stations are paying quite a bit more than most.