{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/broadcast-announcers-and-radio-disc-jockeys/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Broadcast Announcers and Radio Disc Jockeys",
    "soc_code": "27-3011",
    "category": "Media",
    "us_employment": 21240,
    "median_annual_wage": 47340
  },
  "verdict": "COOKED",
  "risk_resistance": 29,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 5,
    "embodiment": 6,
    "liability_shield": 1,
    "trust_premium": 11,
    "judgment_accountability": 6
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "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.",
    "embodiment": "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.",
    "liability_shield": "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.",
    "trust_premium": "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.",
    "judgment_accountability": "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."
  },
  "rationale": "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.",
  "outlook": "Employment keeps shrinking as AI voice and automation absorb recorded and off-peak airshifts, leaving a smaller tier of live, locally recognized personalities and event hosts.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Explicit AI-voice disclosure requirements in broadcast — e.g. FCC's 2024 proceeding on AI-generated content disclosure in political ads, plus state laws (California AB 2602 on digital replicas, requiring specific consent for synthetic voice use) — combined with SAG-AFTRA's National Code of Fair Practice for Sound Recordings and its 2023-24 broadcast/commercials AI terms. If stations must announce 'this segment used a synthetic voice', advertiser and listener preference for a named human host becomes a purchasable, contractible attribute rather than an invisible default.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Live-and-local content requirements attached to spectrum: if the FCC reinstated something like a main studio / local origination obligation (repealed 2017) or conditioned license renewal on staffed local hours, station groups would have to buy human airshifts regardless of listener demand. Watch NAB vs. musicFIRST/local-radio-advocacy filings and any renewal-condition proceeding.",
        "plausibility": "unlikely",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift is real here but narrow: the occupation does have two tiers, and if voice-tracked reads, promos and music logs are fully automated, the residual role is live unscripted interaction — call-in screening under FCC indecency exposure, live remotes, breaking-news local coverage, emergency alerting (EAS activation during a tornado or chemical spill). That residual is genuinely hard to synthesize live, but it is a small fraction of headcount, so the score rises while the job count falls.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Live emergency broadcasting: if state emergency-management rules or an FCC EAS proceeding required a trained human on premises to originate and interpret local alerts (rather than relay automated CAP messages), the on-air person owns a consequential ambiguous call — what to tell listeners during an unfolding incident.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Even with disclosure rules and a judgment-tier residual, the realistic ceiling is roughly the mid-40s. The moat is attachment to specific individuals, which does not transfer to the occupation as a whole — a handful of named morning-show personalities can be well protected while the general airshift headcount continues to fall through voice-tracking and syndication. Nothing on the table restores the number of jobs."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 29230,
        "wage": 34630
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 27290,
        "wage": 36770
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 24580,
        "wage": 37630
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 26820,
        "wage": 41750
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 25070,
        "wage": 44890
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 23880,
        "wage": 45680
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 21240,
        "wage": 47340
      }
    ],
    "from": 2019,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": -27.3,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": false
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}