I'm astonished to read this. The idea that shutting down 198kHz is all about the government wanting to "control" what we can listen to is, in my opinion, ridiculous, paranoid nonsense.
I think calling the idea "ridiculous paranoid nonsense" is unnecessarily dismissive.
Control over information flow has historically been one of the fundamental concerns of governments and large political systems of every ideology. This is not a conspiracy theory but a recurring historical pattern observed for centuries. Free and uncontrolled access to information inherently limits centralized power, so states naturally tend toward regulation, filtering, licensing, censorship, or influence over communication channels whenever they have the practical ability to do so.
And I suspect you are well aware of this yourself, because history is full of examples of governments attempting to restrict, regulate, suppress, or control access to information and media whenever they considered it politically or strategically important.
The only real difference between governments is not whether this tendency exists, but how far they are able to pursue it under technological, economic, legal, and social constraints.
That does not mean every individual decision is driven purely by censorship motives. But dismissing information-control considerations entirely, as if governments have no interest in shaping what populations can easily access or receive, is neither historically nor politically very convincing.
It's about COST! 198kHz is an obsolete service, used by relatively few people, and in any case those users have more modern alternatives. The transmitter at Droitwich occupies prime building land (much like MSF at Rugby did); it uses 500kW of power, day and night, continuously. It is at risk of being unmaintainable: there are fewer than 10 of the output valves left in the whole world.
The BBC has been warning about shutting it down since 2011 because of budget cuts. It makes absolute sense.
PS: The site and transmitter is owned by Arqiva, but of course the BBC will bear all the costs associated with the 198kHz R4 service.
Let’s put aside speculation and look at a first-order engineering comparison.
A 500 kW long-wave transmitter at ~198 kHz typically provides:
- Ground-wave reliable and stable coverage: ~800–1200 km radius
- Skywave-assisted reception: up to ~2000–3000 km or more under favorable propagation conditions
A 30 kW FM transmitter, even in good conditions:
- Practical reliable coverage: ~70–120 km radius on a flat ground surface with no obstacles and about ~20-50 km in the mountains
Now compare coverage area (A = pi * r^2):
- FM (r ~ 60 km): A = pi * 60^2 = 11'309 km^2
- LW (r ~ 1000 km conservative): A = pi * 1000^2 = 3'141'592 km^2
- LW (r ~ 2500 km): A = pi * 2500^2 = 19'634'954 km^2
So
a single LW transmitter covers roughly 300–1700x larger area than
a single FM transmitter.
Now normalize by power:
- FM: 30 kW / 11'309 km^2 = 2.653 W per km^2
- LW: 500 kW / 3'141'592 km^2 = 0.159 W per km^2
So in terms of large-area coverage efficiency, LW broadcasting can be an order of magnitude more energy-efficient per square kilometer covered.
In practical terms, achieving comparable geographic coverage with FM would require a very large distributed network of transmitters rather than a single site. Even with conservative assumptions, you quickly end up with total transmitted power on the order of 30 megawatts for FM infrastructure versus ~500 kW for a single LW service. So the simplistic argument that "LW consumes too much power" becomes much less obvious once you compare complete coverage systems rather than looking only at the electrical consumption of a single transmitter in isolation.
Not to mention that FM broadcasting is fundamentally incapable of providing the kind of ultra-long-range coverage achievable with LW AM propagation, regardless of transmitter power or infrastructure density.
And this is before accounting for the fact that FM networks require many distributed sites, each with their own infrastructure, redundancy, and maintenance overhead, which further increases system-level cost per covered area.
and in any case those users have more modern alternatives.
I would be very cautious with statements like "those users have more modern alternatives", because LW and MW broadcasting still provide capabilities that modern systems generally do not replicate: extremely large-area coverage without dependence on complex intermediate infrastructure such as internet backbones, cellular networks, or local power availability.
Conventional broadcast radio can continue to function with relatively simple battery-powered receivers even when all other communication systems fail, become overloaded, or are intentionally restricted. From a resilience and infrastructure-independence standpoint, LW/MW broadcasting still occupies a unique niche that modern network-centric distribution methods cannot fully replaced.
It is at risk of being unmaintainable: there are fewer than 10 of the output valves left in the whole world.
This sounds more like a convenient simplified explanation aimed at non-technical audiences, rather than a fundamental engineering limitation.
High-power solid-state LF/MF transmitters have existed for many years already, including modular designs capable of hundreds of kilowatts of output power with high redundancy and relatively straightforward maintenance. So the scarcity of specific vacuum tubes does not mean that high-power LW broadcasting itself has become technically impractical.
In fact, vacuum-tube transmitters historically remained popular at these power levels largely because of their simplicity, robustness, overload tolerance, and favorable cost/performance ratio for very high RF powers. But from a modern engineering standpoint, solid-state replacements are entirely feasible, so this is not really a fundamental issue.
it uses 500kW of power, day and night, continuously.
The statement that it "uses 500 kW continuously" is often presented as an argument against efficiency, but in power engineering this is not necessarily a disadvantage in itself.
Continuous, steady load actually corresponds to a high capacity factor, which is generally favorable for power system economics. Generation assets are most cost-efficient when they operate close to constant output, since capital-intensive infrastructure (especially baseload plants such as nuclear, hydro, or large thermal stations) is amortized over stable long-term operation rather than frequent load cycling.
So a constant 500 kW broadcast load is not inherently inefficient — it is, in fact, a relatively "grid-friendly" profile compared to fluctuating demand patterns that require significant additional reserve capacity and dynamic balancing.
Moreover, a long-wave broadcasting station can be taken off-line in a very controlled and predictable manner, allowing its load to be shed during periods of grid stress or during scheduled maintenance windows.
Conversely, from a power system perspective, such a continuously available high-power load can also act as a useful form of flexible demand, capable of absorbing surplus generation during periods of low consumption or renewable overproduction. In that sense, it can function as a controllable sink for otherwise underutilized energy, improving overall grid utilization and reducing the need for curtailment of excess generation.
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