In a newscast/weather forecast recording, can the anchors, meteorologist, etc hear the theme music playing when going to/coming from break? I’ve always wondered if the music plays through their earpiece or somehow.

I feel like the music is only heard on our end and all they hear is total silence in the studio.

If it's a live update, yes...if it's prerecorded, no. They take the music bed, and place the voice track on top. Sometimes it's done so sloppy that you can't hear the the meteorologist clearly because the music bed is to loud. I Heart Media is really bad/good at this.