At Morning Show Bootcamp Thursday Jacobs Media President Fred Jacobs presented new data from 750 on-air personalities. The presentation called Radio Talent in the Post-Pandemic Era showed that 55% of on-air personalities say the pandemic changed the culture at their station, especially those in the bigger companies.
The average radio personality now wears three hats, 1/3 wear four, according to the new report. And the smaller the company, the more hats. Nearly half of the survey respondents say they’ve added more job responsibilities since COVID began, with a notable increase in the last year.
Half of the respondents say they no longer have work/life balance. A majority are comfortable financially but 1/3 are in debt or struggling.
The desirability of medium-sized companies is on the rise while big companies are becoming less attractive. 42% of those surveyed, that work in the larger companies, feel they are part of the company’s future.
The overall feeling is that radio talent is taken for granted. 46% strongly agree with that, while 37% agree.
Most say they would not recommend a high school student pursue radio as a career.
The general conclusion from the data Jacobs collected was that while stress is certainly high for air talent, they are still very passionate about the business.
Jacobs tells Radio Ink he’s planning to host a webinar soon to present the data to the entire industry.
