Occupation / job
Broadcast Technicians
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
Broadcast Technicians pays $59,570 against $50,020 across all occupations — $795 a month more. Every premium is paid for something: find out whether it is the schooling, the licence, the hours or the risk before you decide you want it.
21,110 people do this work nationally. That is the size at which Broadcast Technicians becomes a career rather than a post — enough employers in a normal city that leaving one of them is a decision rather than a crisis.
Media equipment work suits people who like being the reason a broadcast, a shoot or a show technically works, and who are fine with nobody noticing when it does.
We carry no verified training length for Broadcast Technicians — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.
Who should not do this
At 2.1x, from $40,320 to $83,520, the two halves of Broadcast Technicians are not really doing the same job. $3,600 a month separates them, and something other than the title explains it.
The 25th percentile of $40,320 is only $9,700 off the $50,020 national midpoint. Being in the worst-paid quarter of Broadcast Technicians still means being paid close to what the average American job pays.
Avoid it if evenings, weekends and load-outs at two in the morning would not fit around the rest of your life.
No failure rate is shown, and the absence is deliberate: the 21,110 figure counts people already working as Broadcast Technicians, not everyone who trained and never got hired. Without a licensing register to divide by, a rate here would be an invented denominator.
What the spread tells you
At 2.1x the range from $40,320 to $83,520 is doing more explaining than the job title is. Something sorts people across that distance — sector, speciality, or who employs them — and finding out what it is matters more than the $59,570 midpoint.
Put in money rather than ratios: $40,320 at the 25th percentile, $59,570 at the midpoint, $83,520 at the 75th. $43,200 separates the quarter of Broadcast Technicians at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Between $40,320 and $83,520 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $59,570. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $23,950; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $43,200.
The climb from $59,570 to $83,520 is $23,950; the drop to $40,320 is $19,250. A little more room above the midpoint than below it is the normal shape for Broadcast Technicians and for most paid work, and it is the reason the median is the honest summary rather than the average.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Broadcast Technicians is $28.63 an hour. The quarters sit at $19.38 and $40.15, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.
What these figures are, and what they are not
This is payroll data: it comes from employers, about people they employ. Anyone doing the work of Broadcast Technicians for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $59,570 describes them.
The hourly number on this page is $59,570 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Broadcast Technicians, so it is arithmetic rather than an effective rate.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else