What is the average salary for assistant media planner?

Generally speaking, there's a big salary gap between assistants and professionals in the advertising/media/marketing industry. Depending on the number of assistants, and the amount of turnover, I would guess the average annual salary to be in the mid $20Ks to low $30Ks even in big cities like Chicago. The conditions above will also play into the chance of negotiating your salary. I wouldn't expect much flexibility. On the bright side, you should have a decent benefits package, and if you do well, an opportunity to move up quickly. Think of the assistant position as the minor leagues of the industry. I graduated in May of 2002. A month later, I was working as a media sales assistant at a rep firm in NYC. I started at $21K. Unless you have a lot of debt, it is possible to survive on such an low salary for at least a few months.

http://www.salary.com estimates the range for a media coordinator (the closest I could find to your title) in Chicago as $28,905-$33,784. Good luck, and welcome to the industry.

I've found that for many industries salary.com is grossly inflated to real world starting salaries. Sorry. I wouldn't take less than 25k though. Who knows though, sometimes companies are really trying to recruit top talent and pay a little higher. I usually push for about 5k more than whatever job I just left. But for someone entering the workforce try this, take the average one bedroom apartment in your area, add 200-300 for utilities, 200 for transportation, and 300 for food. This is obviously a barebones budget. So in Atlanta (and perhaps Chicago) that would add up to be about 1500. Take that and add about 40% for taxes and other withholding. That comes to 2100 you would need to make every month. Ha, that actually comes out to 25, 200. Use that formula to decide what standard of living you can deal with and negotiate from there.

I was a sales associate, which is sort of the publishing side counterpart to an assistant media planner, and I was making in the $30k range, so that sounds about right.

Does anyone know the normal timeline in terms of promotions and what I can expect in terms of salary progression?

I think it's normal to be promoted after about a year. Can't help you on salary, as I moved in to a different area.