Ofcom Fined Radio Station £25,000 For Switch Off Violation 

After a hurricane here in the US our electricity was out for almost a week. Then, cellular towers started going down as their generators ran out of fuel. I could still get news on AM using a Kaito radio and two AA batteries from a station about 70 miles away in NYC.

Depending on power, AM will reach into places that digital and FM can't.

I built my own crystal set as a kid in the 1970s. A wire, a winding on a ferrite bar, a tuning cap, an OA81 diode and an earpiece. I picked up Radio 4 MW from Moorside Edge (frequency later used by Radio 2 and latterly Radio 5).

There has been a notable push for people to go digital, but as with many things, advantages tend to be A; cherry picked, and B; are often soon exposed as being no advantage at all

I remember Atlantic 252lw. I bought an old valve radio and listened to the very first broadcast. Sister station of radio Luxembourg. Apart from CB, it was my first interest in radio. 🗼

Goes to show that the ‘big boys’ are always looked after. I remember many years ago an RSL Station fell off air a few days shorter than the licence duration. Ofcom was not happy, one of the questions (at the time, don’t know if it still is) on the licence application was “have you ever been in breach of ofcom licence conditions” when they re applied the following year said licence was refused stating the licence applicant was . I doubt that would happen to Bauer Media somehow.

£25k is small change to Bauer Media - they give away at least £10k a day, 5 days a week in prize money

As a teenager I had a Sony ICF2001 radio. On weekends I'd tune in to Atlantic 252 and Radio Luxembourg. I miss those days. I still have the radio. The keyboard membrane has gone as has the volume slider. One of the best radios I've ever had.

It is a shame that AM stations are closing down, but it's a really niche market these days with very few listeners so it doesn't make financial sense for broadcasters to keep doing it. I'd like to see the spectrum opened up to more community radio stations, with a fairly low maximum power output and a low licence fee for broadcasters. It might allow the sort of people that used to run pirate stations to provide legal specialised content for their local market.

In the Netherlands AM radio is restarted for private radio stations, with a max of 100w per TX site. In Belgium, this is still prohibited.

"AM Deathwatch"...i had a good chuckle over that. My Dad stripped out some AM radios from 60's automobiles in the past. I still have one from a 1966 Mercury Meteor Montcalm hooked up in our summer cabin. In the 70's and early 80's, we used to listen to CKPR daytime [about 100 miles away SSW], then in the evenings to 890 WLS from Chicago [750 miles away almost directly south]. Hmm, I should power up that radio again to see if I can hear WLS at night.

Buying a new car, I was excited to find it had a really sensitive and low noise AM/MW receiver. The young-ish salesman was honestly astounded: "What exactly is the point of AM?". My own point was to receive Radio Caroline on 648 KHz (from Suffolk, U.K.)

I collect vintage pocket transistor radios from the 60s and 70s, there are virtually no stations broadcasting now so i have to use a low powered AM midulator

It strikes me that maybe a station such as Radio Caroline who have a limited AM output on 648kHz might want to use those transmitter sites - if OfCOM gives them the licenses for pennies.

It seems like AR made a calculated risk that paid off. Keeping the AM stations on the air for the remainder of the contract duration would have costed far more than the penalty. In an ideal world, the station should be able to negotiate terminating a contract early, especially in the circumstances you described.

In the US AM is still pretty important, especially out in the country away from the cities. I hope it never dies. I love listening to AM at night on long drives, scanning for stations to see how far away I can pick them up. If the conditions are right, you can hear stations hundreds of miles away for a while. There has been recent conflict over car manufacturers trying to remove AM from car radios and it upset a lot of people, I think Ford actually reversed the decision. A lot of people still listen to it.

In geographically large continents and countries like Australia, Africa, South America, and USA, MW AM is vital as VHF transmissions don't have the range. The other issue is vehicle manufacturers tend to be omitting AM radios in new models. This is fine if you live in EU where there are lots of VHF broadcast outlets covering most of the landmass. Not so in Autralia, for instance.

"The radio will always get through" we say. Well, it will right up until we decide to stop broadcasting, I suppose...

I heard a number of car manufacturers in the US were thinking of removing AM from the radios installed in their cars... but then changed their minds? Might be a story there. Personally I like seeing it as an available option for broadcasting and receiving emergency alerts and reports. I still see signs on the highway that read "For Road Conditions, Tune Radio To AM 780" That's a quick and easy way to get information out there!

Amazing what OFCOM choose to ignore and take action over

Nice one for doing this video, I did read the long document the other day. I'd love to see some UK transmitter site tours on your channel, if you could manage to arrange any. Most of the ones I've watched have been in North America.

Well Lewis.. Whatever we loose will be for good.. Not everything needs to be in full HD.. Speaking of which.. In west Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 DAB is useless.. F.M doesn't stand for frequency modulation you know? .. As my old Dad used to say it stands for.. F@ck1ng Marvellous.. On account that it just works.. I'll miss the LW transmission from RTE because it bolstered up a very limited select here.. Not everyone lives in big towns/cities.. Great channel Lewis.. 👍🏻

As an hobbiest and a very keen am nerd. I came across an am transmitter at our local rally. Into a dummy load puts out a healthy 100 Watts. With just a simple vertical wire antenna I'm able to broadcast my 80s trance across most of my area with good quality audio.

They penalize pirate stations for transmitting too much, and others, for not transmitting enough.

I cannot stand DAB - its just so unreliable, if I'm driving on a long distance from SW England to North Wales, DAB just cuts out too frequently to make it an enjoyable listening experience. I used to be able to tune to AM and maybe have to retune once or twice. DAB still has too many areas where it cant be used and the quality isnt as good as its sold to be.

I think (and hope a bit) that medium and shortwave radio will stay for a long time, if not forever. And with all the things going on all around the world, it may become more relevant again in the future. We will see. As long as there is good music in the air I will listen to it 😊 Oh and I just recently heard about a stock market shortwave connection thing (is that even English?😅) between Germany and the USA. It's much faster than the Internet. And for me it's another sign that something is about to happen, and the elites want to keep the money rolling. Okay, I'll take the tinfoil hat off for today.

In the case of an emergency a simple AM receiver could be made. You cannot easily make a DAB receiver. In the US emergency transmissions are on AM.

I much prefer analog signals as you can still slightly hear them if your signal is really weak unlike digital where it just shuts off completely. That goes for all analog signals (TV, radio, VGA and other forms of analog)

we having a similar issue in the US as well with AM radio. some new cars no longer have AM radio. some AM stations went digital AM only. with the cost of power to run a station going up a lot ,This is becoming much harder for stations to stay on the air. was cheaper just pay the fine for switch off. some stations may just go bankrupt.

Bauer probably make £25,000 in advertising revenue during the Ken Bruce show. It's small change to a huge media organisation. Anyone thinking this is more than a slap on the wrist is deluded.

I think AM radio is more useful in North America, where there are wide open spaces between cities.

Unless I'm missing something, surely the point of having the shipping forcast 4x a day on AM LW is so that people out at sea can pick it up. Local FM or digital doesn't have the same distance carrying capacity (think HF used for commercial aviation- same reasons).

Even at the maximum possible fine, it probably still costed out financially to shut down. Energy costs, maintenance, the licence fee itself, network costs, administration and so on just wouldn't have been justified RoI for the number of listeners serviced. The RAJAR numbers would be an interesting read to see if people have moved to other technology, or other stations.

Thanks RM***** Take Care

YES... A.M. is still necessary for a variety of reasons to include national emergencies. That's why the FCC here in the USA. Won't let car dealers and radio manufacturers. Not include a A.M. receiver. Besides. It's still a booming business here. If you want to bring a certain A.M. frequently into a market. You have to move around 15 other frequencies on average. Just to make it fit the band plan for that market.

It's the end of an era, there's no doubt about that but I still get a buzz from listening to short and medium wave radio from abroad. Eventually those will go too, as I realised just how many stations there are online.

Clever move by Bauer, taking a 25K as knowing if they kept going it would have cost them substantially more !!!

I knew AM was in trouble years back when I lived in New Addington nr Croydon. When driving along the road parallel with a tram the switchmode noise was across the MW band and even the strongest signals couldn't get through.

I loved listening to the light program on long wave in the 60’s we always turned the TV off on Sunday afternoon because it was only religious programs

Thanks for this video it was very interesting

Bauer knew they would get a slap on the wrist financial wise and that gamble paid off. Now we wonder if the other AM services will follow.

It's a shame we can't reuse the AM frequencies in Europe for DRM. What happened to BBC Devon's DRM experiment on Medium Wave?

Hi Lewis, excellent narrative and a sign of the times... 73 Clint

AM is alive and well here in Au with more than 470 transmitter sites. In a vast majority of Au the only signals are AM. No TV or DAB or even FM. I live in the country and still dial into SW occasionally 🤣

I don’t know what to think, in the one hand I only ever really listen to FM radio on a day-to-day basis, because of the vastly superior stereo sound quality, but I’d be really sad to lose AM broadcasts, if only because I recently built a couple of crystal radios, a hobby which I hoped to share with my son. When I was a kid I spent countless hours playing with a radio shack crystal radio set, even making an amplifier with a “101 electronic projects” kit and connecting that to it. It sparked a curiosity about electronics that continues to this day. I’d be so sad if the opportunity to show my son these things was lost forever 😢

What about emergency public notifications?

Here in Ohio in the US, I use AM to listen for emergancy broadcasting reguaeding tornados and severe weather mostly. There are a few talk radio stations and one music station I'll also tune into. I like that I can recieve AM signals even in my basement where I cannot get reliable cell, FM or wifi signals. I would/will be very sad to hear the end of the use of these signals, they've been with me all my life and have always been there even when the power was out locally.

The fine is peanuts compared to the running costs and license fee. Smart move for AR as they probably had 5 listeners on AM!

FM ❤ Bless Up Bro

£25k is a joke really - how much would those transmitters have cost to run for the contracted period? Damned sight more, we can be sure of that. The fine should have been that cost + a punitive amount. Not justifying retaining AM, it's dead. We know that, but they shouldn't be able to just do that without it costing them more than maintaining their obligations. Utterly toothless and pointless "cost of doing business" fine.

I live in Sussex, 50m from London. Because of our proximity to France, we have very limited DAB Service and in many places FM is patchy. I used to listen (to Absolute amongst others) on AM as it was the best sound / signal quality. I've noticed recently that FM reception, particularly of the BBC has got worse too. Do you know if they have reduced the transmission power? My only remaining option has been to listen via the internet. I've now fitted an Android radio to my car, such that I can have a radio service. It feels most unsatisfactory! Particularly as the 3G phone service is poor in Sussex too.

I'd bet the bean counter's did the math & decided it was cheaper to take the fine & license revocation than keep transmitting.

The first two radio stations i ever listened to, were Gem AM in the East Midlands, and Atlantic 252, which i assumed when i was too young to understand, was a pirate radio station, broadcast from a ship in the Atlantic, seeing as my mum had told me stories about radio Caroline, this excited me greatly, thinking i had stumbled across a radio ship Since then, as i got older, i found out Atlantic 252 was actually broadcast from Trim, Ireland, which was ok with me, it was interesting seeing their thousand foot antenna, and 500kw transmitter site I do miss Atlantic 252, it was a pop station you could hear over most of the uk without re-tuning the stereo I think if car radio manufacturers had continued equipping the sets with long wave receive capabilities, i would have continued listening to 252 throughouy life I feel that its not Atlantic 252's fault there listener numbers declined, more car radio manufacturers

Give the old land based and offshore MW pirates licences

Where I live, just 25 miles west of London, apart from BBC Radio Berkshire, FM reception is very poor. My apartment is like a Faraday cage for VHF FM and though I can get Radio 4 with some hiss using the communal antenna socket in the lounge, I need AM radio to listen anywhere else. I would miss AM radio. I can't imagine how the shipping forecast could be heard far out to sea on VHF as it can be on Long Wave.

£25,000 is all they got fined? How is that fine a deterrent? That's probably not even a single engineers salary for a year let alone the 7+ years on top of that. That's far less than the £70,000 that should have been paid in licence fees that are being lost too. So essentially for doing the wrong thing the company has financially benefited? How's that going to stop the next company that decides to do the same? The country has lost out on a service for listeners, not just financially and a company is walking way happy with it's choice. Perhaps the company should loose all licences when it decides to unilaterally give up it's responsibilities of one of them.

In New Zealand AM radio is still alive and well, mainly used for talkback and multi cultural stations with a few exceptions, as we still don't have any kind of digital radio service in this country.

Probably cheaper to pay the fine than to carry on with AM. Smart move.

I used to listen to Absolute Radio in the car on the AM band, 1215kHz

Here in the USA more and more AM stations are going dark and turning in their licenses. Plus some auto makers are not offering AM.

As more UK and European AM stations close, I find I'm enjoying stations like Jil FM (549 kHz) from Algeria, and also Algeria channel 3 on 252 kHz, which are strong at night in the South of England. So at least that's a kind of bittersweet upside.

Having moved to SV land in 2006 one of the first things I did here was to roll through the AM band on my car radio to see what was active here on the island or anything from the continent. Zero, nothing. All I heard was QRM from all sorts of sources which were the HV insulators on the grid electric system, dirty switch mode supplies from home computers, etc. it was a real let down. I really missed listening to AM stations such as WLW, WSM back in the states. There was a warm sense of nostalgia tuning into a far away station late at night on the way home from second shift. Even back in 1972 my new Mustang was equipped with only an AM radio and it wasn’t until two years later I added an 8 track player with FM radio in it but the listening choices were limited for the time on FM. It was AM that ruled. As for Offcom handing down the fine, unless the stations in question were providing secondary emergency services for the British government, the rules are a bit off. You would think that a government agency should know costs of running these stations especially the cost of electric to keep the transmitters running all day long. It would appear that this agency is out only for money as with most every government agencies around the world. Keep these informative videos rolling, they are very informative! 73!

I was in Scotland yesterday where I couldn't get any dab, and as I haven't connected my FM ariel, I was using AM. It's still needed when there isn't an DAB signal

One thing stands clear, only an AM station can be heard by a radio with no power. In case of a tremendous tragedy that last months AM stations will be sorely missed. Only the government will have a working comm and civilians will be in darkness.

I’ve not listened to AM radio in years. FM in the car, DAB on the office radio, and online in most other cases - in fact, increasingly I listen online via my phone and Bluetooth in the car. AM is very, very dead - it was always rubbish, especially at night as we all know!

AM radio transmitters allow long distance signal in evening/ night time making it very nice for people from other countries to know better the culture regarding music and mentality of their neighbours or even probems actual there or even in far countries It was my pleasure to enjoy AR for last years, as well as is still pleasure of listening to any existing AM radios, requiring AM technic and which are enjoable with teaching the skills . I made a big effort to set up my vintage tube radio specially for purpose of listening to foreign stations because we in Poland lost ourlocal MW transmitters already in 90ties Am radio is lot much more exciting than digital or FM.

I use AM daily. I'm in London and DAB can be squelchy and unlistenable. Not only that but DAB radios use more power. I had a wind-up radio for a while and a full winding gave minutes of listening via DAB whereas AM or FM gave hours. I have a small battery powered AM/FM/LW transistor radio that's at least 30 years old. It works really well. Two of the DAB radios I bought (not bloody cheap either) have stopped working after ten years. The lights are on but nobody's at home. The third DAB radio is limping and probably on its last legs.

What happened about keeping AM going in case of national emergency? Guess the general public aren’t skilled enough to hack together a crystal set like in the old days. But AM does travel further than anything else which could still be useful - and old AM radios run for ages on a set of batteries, unlike DAB.

I used to listen to Absolute Radio every morning on AM, as they didn't broadcast in FM, so there was no option. When it switched off I was really annoyed, as now I've lost it. If they had moved to FM that would have been okay, but it doesn't exist now. Really sad. I'd have to buy another radio for digital, which is going to cost money, probably have a worse signal, and will eat through batteries quicker (the radio is in the bathroom as I listen to it when getting ready on a morning). I've never used a digital radio that has worked well. My bedside one often beeps and says no signal, the three hire cars I've used with it cut out about every 30 seconds, and I don't expect a new one to be much better if I do get one. I don't understand why they weren't in FM all along, as that's what normal radio is. It's bizarre to bot be in FM.

I think it’s sad but understandable. Having said that though, am is a valuable backup in emergency situations. I get that commercial operators wants to close down their services, but RTE and potentially BBC doing the same thing is incredibly short sighted and might be dangerous.

There wont be anything left coming from Droitwich. Its a shame, i can see it from my back yard :( Absolute Radio 1215 Off. Talksport on 1053 going And now Radio 4 198 going If you do come down to film the site youre welcome to come for a cup of tea and look at an old pirate transmitter ive got from the 80s/90s 😂

Radio Caroline is running on solar ,completely "green" just love the AM style .Don't stop. Equal with LW.

Listening patterns change over the years, currently I never listen to radio at home but get in the car and FM comes on with the engine. MY car radio follows national FM stations as I cross the country. Car radio will eventually catch up with DAB, some will even track stations from one DAB transmitter to the next according to which station is multiplexed where. We'll soon find out what happens to the vacant band, will pirates be everywhere in the band or will the band be sold off -but to whom and for what?

AM services are a must as back up in the case of other services going south due to some major catastrophe or force major etc.

I think that medium wave is still important. If there's a natural or human made disaster, MW is still the best to communicate that

Here in Australia AM Radio is still relevant and I guess it will be for a time due to the distance areas.

Good on Ofcom. The end of Radio 4 on longwave really will be an end of an era. It's understandable given the issue with obtaining replacement valves for the transmitter. At least the shipping forecast will carry on.

i'd be interested to have an outline on what all those different antennae are for.

While I find broadcasting as a whole interesting I have to say my interest in radio hasn't been too strong. Most of the commercial stations at this point are just playing pop music all day, everyday and really nothing grabs my attention on the non-commercial side. I think a glut of choice elsewhere via other digital platforms (Podcasts are a favourite of mine) I think it is inevitable that analogue broadcasting will cease at some point in the future and it makes sense to me they've taken the fine here and walked away, it was the least worst option.

AR should have been forced to honor the bidded for licence, rather than being let off the hook. I'd like to see an alternative operator take over and provide that service but cant see that happening under the current financial woes. As for DAB vs FM, well its FM all the way.

In the UK, Digital Radio actually has to be in new cars. FM is still existing as of now because of older cars and probably is the new AM now.

The shut down of LW, AM and SW radio services across Europe, in the last few years, directly correlates to the obscene energy price. Transmitters are power hungry, and we all know too well today's electricity bill... Certifications, inspections and insurances, all have to be paid also... Add that to an increase difficulty of finding the right engeneers for that kind of job. New tech is so much light, but we will always ❤ 📻. Great content, your videos are unique. Cheers from 🇵🇹

Loss of AM puts me in mind of scenes from a couple of films: Terminator 3 in the 1950's bunker; Die Hard 4 with John contacting Warlock from the truck. So let's hope that neither of those films play out in real life!

I am happy that I do not live in Norway where the all FM transmission is replaced by DAB+.

Has the £250k cap on fines remained the same since 1990? If it kept pace with inflation it'd be £740k today, no wonder this country is in such a mess when fines don't keep pace with inflation.

Has Talksport 1053 gone? Normally listen in my car but l can't hear it in Lincolnshire anymore since the end of May 23

But will a newcomer step up to take the INR2 license? I read the Ofcom paper which said that they have the option of re-advertising it and apparently they did receive expressions of interest. Absolute should have also been stripped of their DAB licence too in addition to the 25k. That would probably hurt more since no doubt DAB is where the majority of their listeners are.

I can see the Droitwich transmitters from my home. Once the tallest man-made structures and the most powerful transmitters in the world. The valves at it's heart are no longer manufactured anywhere on Earth, and when the valves currently fitted and operating give up the ghost, that's it. No more LW. The towers have been a landmark for 8 decades. With powerful lights up the length of each tower for aviation safety. When they go it will be for us like seeing Blackpool Tower go out.....

The phone's headphone wire as the antenna requirement (on mine at least) works great with my wireless set 😞 Side note;- There is a set of sharp curves along a creek an hour away from me and at N/S pointing parts of the road you get one station and E/W you get another. It flicks back and forth 4-5 times just there. Figure it is the back-glass antenna being used directionally, unintentionally.

Hands up all those who's electronics career started with a home made crystal radio. Show me a ten-year-old kid who can make a viable digital receiver using only a coil of wire and a diode. A sad, sad state of affairs ! I suppose all we can do now is to feed a digital stream into an AM Pantry Transmitter but the mystery and reward of tuning your very first home-made radio was very special, not something you'd ever forget. Phil

Interesting, by the way we hope you are analysing the bbc radio stifling of county stations?

Absolute 90s on DAB is poor up in Aberdeenshire. . I thought it was our car radio but the new car was the same.

I grew up with AM radio both as a shortwave listener and tuning in to those powerful medium wave signals from the offshore fleet in the '60s and '70s and remember those times fondly. I live outside of the UK now but am a Radio Caroline supporter to this day and listen to crystal clear audio via their online streams, and I think that, even if I lived within their AM transmitter service area I'd probably still listen via the internet simply because of the better audio quality. Okay, internet coverage can be a bit sketchy in places, especially in a car, whereas an AM signal is usually solid and reliable, so I think Caroline should not only keep their AM license, but also be granted the power increase they're asking for, if not more. I do still tune in to the BBC World Service on short wave daily for the news by the way, just to remind me of the old days, so hopefully they'll keep that service going a while longer 🙂

RTE spent a small fortune on digitising their radio stations.... Then completely ditched DAB two years ago as it was "the least utilised service in Ireland" and cost them a fortune to maintain. Typical industry led nonsense.

Although the AM broadcast band does not have the audio quality of FM band signals, it's range is much greater providing better usage for emergencies and disaster broadcasts. I think the FCC and other radio transmission bureaucratic agencies around the world are CRAZY for putting an end to the AM broadcast band!!!!

The drive to digital, and particularly internet-based communications is going to cause increasing problems when we lose power or connectivity. Medium and long wave signals can cover much larger areas than VHF. That means fewer transmitters and fewer resilient communications links are required in case of emergency. How many VHF FM stations would remain on air if there were a major Internet outage? AM, as you call it still has an important role in the UK.

Trust me when I say between electricity and upkeep, they haved already more than put the 25k in the bank to pay the fine. That there is absolutely nobody lining up to take over the frequencies on a national basis tells you everything you need to know. AM radio is, efffectively, the rotary dial phone of broadcasting. Just slightly better than having to ask an operator to make a connection but way behind the current technologies.

In most parts of Suffolk, DAB is not very practical in cars, as you can lose the signal for up to 10 minutes at a time when travelling through rural areas.

Sad to see so many services going to the wall. There's nothing like radio 4 on long wave for me. It evokes so many memories from my childhood. The shipping forecast was a fascination to me. I still prefer to listen to long wave. I like that its difficult, I like the interference and frequency shift. We have seen this before with the death of records. People later realised that part of its appeal were the very imperfections cds promised to eradicate. The imperfections are very much part of the experience. It's why people love classic cars. They are worse at everything but still a more enjoyable experience.

Try finding a radio with am on it these days, you can't, its even been taken off car radios