How To Become An On-Air Director: What It Is and Career Path

What is an on-air director and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

2 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being an on-air director. For example, did you know that they make an average of $31.85 an hour? That's $66,246 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 8% and produce 12,800 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreOn-Air DirectorUS Average

Salary

5.2

Avg. Salary $66,246

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

8.0

Growth rate 8%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

5.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.17%

Asian 6.43%

Black or African American 8.03%

Hispanic or Latino 14.75%

Unknown 5.61%

White 65.02%

Gender

female 29.93%

male 70.07%

Age - 39

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 39

Stress level

8.0

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.2

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

3.4

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an on-air director

Explore on-air director education requirements

Most common on-air director degrees

Bachelor's

72.3 %

Associate

13.6 %

Master's

6.1 %

Start to develop specific on-air director skills

Skills	Percentages
Facebook	12.55%
Twitter	11.39%
FCC	11.30%
FM	8.65%
Wide Orbit	6.80%

Complete relevant on-air director training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New on-air directors learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as an on-air director based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real on-air director resumes.

Research on-air director duties and responsibilities

Manage all the station's production including promos, sweepers, and PSA's.
Top 40/R & B/Rock DJ.
Attend USAF regional and national meetings concerning future work.
Host daily radio broadcasts, compiling playlists and playing listener requests.

Get on-air director experience

Generally, it takes 1-2 years to become an on-air director. The most common roles before becoming an on-air director include on-air personality, internship team lead and production assistant.

Prepare your on-air director resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your on-air director resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on an on-air director resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable on-air director resume templates

Build a professional on-air director resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your on-air director resume.