Will AI replace Media Technical Directors/Managers?
AI reaches some of this job’s work, but most of it stays with people.
29/100
Moderate exposure
More exposed to AI than 45% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 0% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 50% of the work
What the job involves
Coordinate activities of technical departments, such as taping, editing, engineering, and maintenance, to produce radio or television programs.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Within reach(8)
- Train workers in use of equipment, such as switchers, cameras, monitors, microphones, and lights.
- Observe pictures through monitors and direct camera and video staff concerning shading and composition.
- Act as liaisons between engineering and production departments.
- Monitor broadcasts to ensure that programs conform to station or network policies and regulations.
- Set up and execute video transitions and special effects, such as fades, dissolves, cuts, keys, and supers, using computers to manipulate pictures as necessary.
and 3 more
Out of reach(7)
- Supervise and assign duties to workers engaged in technical control and production of radio and television programs.
- Test equipment to ensure proper operation.
- Switch between video sources in a studio or on multi-camera remotes, using equipment such as switchers, video slide projectors, and video effects generators.
- Operate equipment to produce programs or broadcast live programs from remote locations.
- Direct technical aspects of newscasts and other productions, checking and switching between video sources and taking responsibility for the on-air product, including camera shots and graphics.
and 2 more
Also called
Production Manager · Production Director · News Director · Production Superintendent · Broadcast Director · News Technical Director · Newscast Director · Operations Director
Related jobs
What these numbers mean
The score is the share of this job’s work, weighted by how important and frequent each task is, that AI could do in half the time: tasks an AI model could do alone count in full, tasks that need software built on AI count half.
“AI already used” is the share of the work in tasks where people are recorded using AI today. “As AI tools mature” counts every task AI could halve, with or without extra software.
The percentile compares the score with every job’s, weighted by how many people in the US do each one. Exposure means AI could change how the work is done, not that the job goes away. These are estimates for the typical job, not predictions.
Sources
- O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
- GPTs are GPTs: Labor market impact potential of LLMs (task labels), Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin & Rock (2023), OpenAI and University of Pennsylvania
- Anthropic Economic Index: labor market impacts (task penetration), Anthropic
- Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (national and metropolitan areas), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics