I really have an odd nostalgia for longwave. I grew up listening to radio 4 lw in the middle of nowhere and it was the only station that had consistently good signal. The fact that it carried somewhere out into the Atlantic blew my mind!

I understand it's closing because some insanely high powered, insanely expensive valve or thyristor or triac or generic high power "niche" component is reaching the end of its life, but I will be sad nevertheless when this goes.

DAB doesn't work reliably with my phone charging in the same room...

For BBC World Service the shift to digital led to a 11% drop in audience. Maybe not quite the same, as the target market is often developing countries (I live in a EU country and they are only just introducing DAB this year).

https://www.theregister.com/off-prem/2026/03/17/bbc-digital-...