TV and Radio News Director Profiles ... 2025
Aug. 25, 2025 — Another year, and the RTDNA/Newhouse School at Syracuse University Survey found that TV news directors got a year older — reversing last year’s trend when their median age stayed the same. The good news is that the median tenure for TV news directors returned to the usual three years. Last year, for the first time in 30 years, the median tenure had dropped to two years. Meanwhile, radio news directors got a little younger, with their median age decreasing by one year.
TV
The typical (median) TV news director moved up from 50 to 51 years old. That seems reasonable. The average age edged up from 50 to 50.3.
This year, age correlated with market size, unlike last year. News directors in markets 1 through 100 were a little more than four years older than those in markets 101+.
Radio
The RTDNA/Newhouse School at Syracuse University Survey found that radio news directors in 2025 are getting a little bit younger.
The news director average age went from 51.9 last year to 51.1 this time around. The median age slid from 54 last year to 53.
Commercial station news directors continue to be older than those at public stations, although the difference dropped from 6 years two years ago to closer to 5 last year up to nearly 7 this time around.
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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 and has worked as a news producer and video editor.
Tim Mirabito is Assistant Professor of Broadcast and Digital Journalism at Syracuse University and worked in television, radio, print and online media.
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 2024 among 1,918 operating, non-satellite television stations and a random sample of 4,763 radio stations. The television response rate is different for every question, but valid responses came from as many as 1,406 television stations (73.3%) and 599 radio news directors and general managers representing 1,632 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.