BBC Radio 4 Dropping AM/Medium-Wave in April 2024

Effective 15th April, Radio 4 will no longer be available on medium-wave. Medium-wave listeners will need to retune their radio to alternative platforms.

With these two terse sentences at the bottom of a related announcement, the BBC signalled the end of BBC Radio 4’s service on medium-wave, called AM in the United States and Canada. The service will still be available on FM, DAB, digital TV and online.

The frequencies were only being used to support its longwave service, which has been scheduled for closing this month since May of last year.

MW transmission of Radio 4 is ending as there will no longer be a longwave variant of Radio 4’s schedule. There’s no Radio 4 service on MW, it has always been there to support LW. There are only nine transmitters in total providing very little coverage, and affected listeners will have access to Radio 4 on FM even if they don’t have a digital radio.
— BBC spokesperson Laura Zetterberg