Radio Career Paths

Human connection, the fast pace and no two days being the same all make radio a popular career choice. But how to go from an avid listener to a fully-fledged broadcasting career?

We take a look at some common radio career paths, so you can start working towards your dream radio job today.

What Are Popular Radio Career Paths?

Some of the most popular radio career paths are for the following jobs:

• Radio Producers
  
• Radio Presenters or Hosts
  
• Broadcast Journalists
  
• Broadcast Engineers

Radio career paths are often intertwined. Experience in one area is useful across the board. At smaller stations, you may find yourself getting stuck in with everything. Whereas bigger stations may have clearly distinguished roles.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at how you could secure the above jobs, and where they can lead.

Radio Producer Career Path

Start on the radio producer career path by becoming a Broadcast Assistant. As the name suggests, you'll assist the production of a radio show.

Your day to day might include:

• Researching topics for the show
• Monitoring social media interactions
• Creating social media content
• Audio editing
• Liaising between guests, callers and the show’s producers

Broadcast Assistant roles can be either volunteer or paid positions. For paid roles in particular, you'll need to show you're passionate about radio. Once you've mastered the role you can move on to Assistant Producer.

Assistant Producer

Assistant Producers work closely with presenters and producers. They have more editorial responsibility than broadcast assistants. They are often expected to contribute more ideas to a show.

Assistant Producers may still have similar duties to a Broadcast Assistant. On top of this, they:

• Come up with and research ideas and guests
• Create social media content & manage social media channels
• Write scripts & briefs for guests
• Source & edit audio
• Produce show segments

Producer

The producer handles the radio show as a whole. They work closely with the presenter & oversee the assistant producers and broadcast assistants. Ultimately, they have more responsibility than assistant producers but do many similar tasks. Their additional duties include:

• Oversee the live production of the show(s) in the studio
• Come up with topical ideas for interviews, guests, features and segments
• Research, book and write briefs for guests
• Write scripts and cues
• Produce show segments & edit interviews
• Research, book and write briefs for guests
• Choose the music and contribute to playlist meetings
• Monitor audience interaction, listener figures and engage with listeners on social media
• Manage their team (of assistant producers & broadcast assistants), delegate tasks and provide feedback

The next step in this radio career path depends on what you specialize in as a Radio Producer. For news Radio Producers, the next steps are Executive Producer or Editors. For other radio producers, you can progress on to a bigger station or become a programme manager.

Programme Managers & Directors

In commercial radio, there can be programme managers or programme directors. Whilst managing the programming team, they put in place strategies to grow audience numbers. As well as grow the hours listened and market share. Alongside this, they develop new talent and nurture the station's commercial relationships.

It's hard to become a programme director without that prior radio experience, as Matt Lissack, Content Director at Communicorp UK, explains:

“You need experience in what makes great radio and how to motivate presenters.”

Radio Presenter Career Path

One of the most coveted radio jobs is the radio host or presenter. Many start off by volunteering at a community, hospital or student radio station. Others get their foot in the door by creating their own content. Elz The Witch was essentially scouted by Rinse FM from her IGTV.

Alternatively, Kaylee Golding told us how she had bagged so many radio presenting jobs. Kaylee has consistently made social media and other audio content, alongside radio...

Radio presenting career paths can progress on to bigger and bigger presenting gigs. From hyperlocal to local to national stations.
But the radio presenting career path isn’t always up. Others move into radio production, management or become programme directors.

While radio presenting can be very competitive, Matt Lissack points out the talent doesn't go unnoticed:

“If you’re good, you will get noticed, because we’ll always need new talent - and that will always be a constant in an industry such as ours."