COOKED
The bulk of the job — writing show copy, reading weather/traffic/news breaks, recording promos and commercial spots, sequencing music logs, cutting station imaging — is text-and-voice work that synthetic voice plus automation software already does at broadcast-usable quality, which is why voice-tracking and syndication hollowed out local airshifts a decade before generative AI. What survives is the parasocial local personality: live call-ins, remotes from the county fair, unscripted interviews, and being the recognizable human at station events. No license protects the role and no one signs off on anything, so the only real moat is listener attachment to a specific person.
Core tasks are already automatable. Reading a liner card, voicing a :30 spot, tracking four hours of a music log in twenty minutes, and pulling weather off the wire are all tasks that automation systems and cloned voices already perform at air quality — the 5 reflects that only the unscripted live segments (a caller with an unpredictable story, a guest who goes off-script) still need you in the chair.
Some physical or field component. You are physically present for board operation, mic technique, remotes from car dealership lots and fairgrounds, and station appearances, but that's a padded studio and a folding table with a banner — a 6, not a 13, because nothing about the environment is uncontrolled or hazardous and voice-tracking already proves the studio presence is optional.
No licence, no signature requirement. There is no FCC license held by the announcer — the station holds it, the licensee is on the hook for indecency and EAS compliance, and your air name isn't attached to any filing, so a 1 reflects that anyone can legally do your shift tomorrow.
Some relationship component. An 11 recognizes that listeners bond to your specific voice at 7:15 a.m. and will call in for you by name, but the relationship is one-way and station-branded — you don't carry the audience with you when you leave the frequency, which is why syndicated hosts replaced local ones without measurable ratings collapse in many markets.
Executes defined procedures on defined inputs. Your discretionary calls are format-bounded — which caller to put on air, when to hit the post, whether a bit is going long — and the clock, the music log, and the program director's format sheet decide the rest, which is why 6 rather than double digits; breaking-news continuity duty is the rare exception and usually gets handed to the news department.
Has AI actually changed your work?