Radio News Directors Grow Younger As Public Radio Diversity Holds Strong.

The typical radio news director is one year younger in 2025 than the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) reported last year. Its annual report on the state of broadcast news shows that the median age for a radio news director is 53. That is down from 54 last year.

The report — produced with the Newhouse School at Syracuse University — says commercial station news directors continue to be older than those at public radio stations. Two years ago, the research showed a six-year age gap. That narrowed slightly to about five years in 2024. And this year the gap has widened to seven years.

The young 50s appear to be the sweet spot for news directors. The RTNDA says the typical TV news director is 51 years old in 2025. While radio news directors got younger, the report says the average TV news director is one year old in this year’s survey compared to last year.

Unlike radio, where whether the station ran ads made a big difference, the RTDNA says the size of the market is the biggest factor at television stations. The trade group reports news directors in markets 1 through 100 were a little more than four years older than those in markets beyond the top 100.

The annual survey also offers some insights into how many racial minorities are working in radio and television news.

The latest data shows that the minority workforce in radio lost the 5% gain it made last year. The total number of racial minorities fell back down to 16.6% from last year’s record high of 21.5%. The RTDNA says the numbers fell across the board across all minority groups.

The drop this year came from commercial radio, which saw the number of minority journalists decline from 19.4% last year to 8.9% this year. The situation was much different at noncommercial radio, where minority journalist employment remained fairly steady at 23.8%, nearly identical to last year’s numbers. Those numbers could, however, be much different a year from now when the impact of layoffs at scores of public radio stations is measured.

In the meantime, the RTDNA says the percentage of minority radio news directors continues to fluctuate. Two years ago, the percentage of minority news directors was down 1.5%, last year it went up 1.7%, and this year it went down 2.3% to land roughly at the pre-pandemic numbers. 

Meanwhile, in television, the RTDNA says the number of racial minorities on the job rose 2.5% to 28.1% in 2025. That’s the second-highest level ever in the history of RTDNA tracking. It is slightly behind 2023’s all-time high of 29.6%. The percentage of minority news directors dropped, though the RTDNA says they are close to what was reported in last year’s survey.

The numbers are boosted by the growth of Spanish-language television through the years. But the RTNDA says the minority workforce at non-Hispanic TV stations also went back up from 24.5% last year to 26.7% om 2025. It notes that the number is close to the all-time high of 28.4%. which was also recorded in 2023. 

Overall, the TV news workforce is 55.5% men and 44.5% women. That is virtually identical to last year. Historically, in TV news, men have outnumbered women for all groups except Asian Americans and Native Americans.

The RTDNA/Newhouse Survey, conducted in the fourth quarter of 2024, included responses from 599 radio news directors and general managers representing 1,632 stations, as well as up to 1,406 television stations. The annual study is supported by the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and the Radio Television Digital News Association.