Why Putin’s energy crisis means AM radio is being switched off forever
Many services face being forced off the airwaves by soaring broadcasting costs, reports James Warrington
Phil Riley has AM frequencies seared into his memory. “In my youth, Radio 1 was at 247 and then just a bit further up was Piccadilly on 261, or you went down to 208 to get Luxembourg,” the veteran radio executive says.
“You knew what these numbers were because you needed to know,” says Riley, who runs Boom Radio. “That for our generation – the older generation – was all part of the romance of radio.”
Amplitude modulation (AM) technology first brought speech and music crackling on to the airwaves more than a century ago. For many listeners, it allowed them a glimpse into far-off worlds – be it the front lines during the two world wars or the rock’n’roll craze sweeping America in the 1950s. But as technology has evolved – first with FM, then digital broadcasts and more recently the rise of streaming – AM has faded into the background. Now, it may finally be retired for good.
The cost of keeping AM services running has surged since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which sent global energy prices soaring. Climbing electricity costs have forced some stations to reassess whether they really need AM channels any more.
Absolute Radio has abruptly opted to shut down its AM services eight years before its licence ends, putting it in line for a fine from Ofcom.
TalkSport, which shared the same infrastructure as Absolute, has in turn asked Ofcom for permission to turn off four of its 22 existing transmitter sites.
The reckoning means the old way of listening to radio is facing its swan song, despite the fact that millions of people still tune in. AM in Britain traces its roots back to 1920, when the first radio broadcast was carried out by Guglielmo Marconi, whose wireless company would go on to be one of the founding members of the BBC. The technology prospered through the 1920s – the “golden age” of radio. FM emerged the following decade, offering improvements in quality. However, it was not until the 1980s that AM lost its status as the primary radio medium in the UK.
Digital audio broadcasting (DAB) emerged in the 1990s and digital radio has grown exponentially since then, spurred by online consumption and the growth of smart speakers. It now makes up two thirds of all listening, according to the latest figures from industry body Rajar.
Despite this trend, the Government has been reluctant to pull the plug on analogue radio. In 2021 it said there would be no mandated switch-off of AM or FM until at least 2030. Nevertheless, with AM listening in continual decline, the industry has begun to plot out its demise.
Last year, the BBC outlined plans to shut off AM services for 5 Live and end long wave transmission on Radio 4 as part of a broader digital push it hopes will save £500m.
In recent months, the industry-wide AM retirement has taken on a greater sense of urgency given the climbing cost of running it.
AM radio now accounts for just 2pc of listening but generates more than a third of transmission energy costs, according to government figures.
While the cost of running an AM or DAB station is roughly the same, broadcasting is far more expensive for both AM and FM. Analogue stations are broadcast on separate radio waves, whereas DAB channels can be grouped together as they are broadcast into what is known as a “multiplex”. Each AM and FM frequency carries only a single station, whereas DAB multiplexes each carry between 11 and 22 stations, making it much more efficient.
As a result, AM and FM networks need more infrastructure than DAB to broadcast the same number of stations, and therefore use more energy. Around three quarters of energy use in the UK radio industry comes from power-hungry analogue broadcasts, despite the fact that the majority of listening is digital. AM is also much more expensive than FM because the older technology is less efficient. James Cridland, a radio expert, says TalkSport’s AM transmission in London uses 100 times more energy than that of Capital FM, for example.
Estimations of how much transmitters cost to run vary, but
Absolute is thought to be saving at least £1m a year by shutting down its AM service. Its looming fine from Ofcom is unlikely to be anywhere near that level.
Behind this sudden pullback is a sharp rise in energy costs, with power prices surging to record highs in the wake of the war in Ukraine.
At Boom Radio, a station focused on the over-60s, Riley says he briefly considered buying Absolute’s transmitters when he heard it was stopping its AM broadcasts. “It took us about 30 seconds to decide it would be a mad idea,” he says. “We’d lose our mortgages”.
Older listeners are adapting to new technology, with around 40pc of listeners on Boom Radio now tuning in via smart speaker.
Yet the end of AM raises the prospect that the estimated 6.5m people who still access the service – including elderly and vulnerable listeners – could be left in silence.
Riley says: “There will be people who still have radios that are 20, 30 or 40 years old and are still listening on AM.”
Others could be affected, too. Earlier this month the i newspaper reported that maritime bodies are preparing a public information campaign to warn sailors who rely on the BBC’s shipping forecast that the service will no longer be available on long wave.
For the BBC and its commercial rivals, the switch-off risks sparking a backlash from listeners. In the early 1990s, scores of Radio 4 fans marched on Broadcasting House to protest against the closure of the station’s long wave service. Yet industry bosses are prepared to face down any resistance. With audience numbers so low, and energy costs through the roof, running AM transmission simply is not viable any more.
“For the more traditional older audience it is an issue, but at the end of the day you’ve just got to be realistic about it,” says Riley.
Cridland, the radio consultant, also points to the difficulty of even being able to buy an AM radio today. Out of 26 alarm clocks listed on the Currys website, just four offer AM.
Ultimately, the death of AM is more of a nostalgia blow to a generation brought up on the romance of dials.
“It’s all part of the history of radio that I think people our age do love,” says Riley. “You’ve lost that magic of individual stations having a number and that number meaning something to people – that’s the sadness of the decline.”