La Masion de la Radio, Paris, France, (Photo source: Gérard Ducher via Wikimedia Commons).
Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Marc, who shares this news from Radio France.
The article (in French) notes that as of midnight on December 31, 2015, Radio France will cease all mediumwave broadcasts permanently. Up to this point, Radio France’s mediumwave transmitters have broadcast France Info, France bleu RCFM and France Bleu Elsass.
The article notes that regions previously within the broadcast footprint of their mediumwave transmissions are now serviced via FM and/or online streaming.
This is terrible. Makes no sense, MW has been around forever. I love MW and MW dxing … everytime they try to “improve” something, they make it worse. Analog TV, for example. This just sucks.
If you follow that logic. We would still have B&W television, cylinder recordings, monophonic sound, 4:3 television.
@Keith You sound like one of these guys who can’t go 15 minutes without his iphone. Sad.
For television and radio I have not watched or listened to anything except for on demand. Why would I listen to traditional delivery radio? Even my car doesn’t have FM or MV. I have a G4 radio. This is for listening to the BBC WS and Radio Australia. The last time I tuned to a local station was more than 5 years ago. Even for traffic I use my satnav.
In Taiwan you can’t even buy a car with a FM or MV radio. It’s all G4.
Just like a laptop. I can’t even remember the last time I used mine. Even for work. Nearly all television work including editing I do on Iphone and Ipad. The Iphone is just the next level of the personal computer.
Includes France Bleu Elsass on 1278 kHz, which is not transmitted on FM. It will only be available via the Internet. C’est domage.
… and that’s a service for the elderly population … they ALL have internet ?????
Usually the mobile phone radio apps or flash apps are totally and completely unusable for elderly people (and for many younger people as well).
So I guess they have to cancel the channel since the elderly will surely not listen on the internet.
It made sense since FM coverage is excellent. There is no need in Europe anymore for MV. Even developing countries are leaving MV.
What FM coverage? Do you realize the coverage given by MW/LW transmitters with up to 2000 kW power?
In areas where they have an audience they will continue on FM. In October when I was at RF. We talk about this. Problem no audience. When I say “no audience”, its not enough to justify to keep MV on the air.
We live in 2015. People have so many other means to receive content. Also if people are not listening, what is the point of spending that kind of money for only a few handful of listeners.
The Association of International Broadcasting based in London, put the audience of their MV as insignificant.
Yes and no.
There is NO way of listening to your native language broadcasts once you leave a 10…20km zone of your home country anymore when you are mobile.
DVB-S: imagine carrying a dish on your head … 😉
Internet: You simply can’t pay for the roaming bill 🙁
In times of globalisation we do everything to cut off ourselves on the move (which is a charakteristik of that globalisation).
Btw.: there is no such thing as information freedom in times of internet radio – just have a look at china and it’s “great chinese firewall”.
So those people who live outside this MW footprint who can’t get FM reception are screwed unless they have SW or net streaming ? What a novel way to render good MW radios to the scrapheap all for the sake of greed and profit.
I hate radio streaming for the simple reason that it’s not a passive activity – a user’s listening habits can be monitored, and if necessary, terminated for whatever reason. Then there is the whole matter of network outages and changes in the bitrate of the stream which can affect listening quality.
I guess I’m just sick and tired of technology tracking and mining our every move.
According to the article, they’re also shutting down longwave one year later. Bummer.
I suppose that will mean we will also lose the TDF standard time and frequency signal carried on 162 kHz as I once documented here:
https://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/ntp/tdf.html
bonsoir
je m’exprime en français puisque je suis directement concerné.
il se trouve que certains lieux de ma région ( sud ouest ) sont mal couvert par la FM et les petites ondes étaient le seul moyen de capter France Info lorsque on circule en voiture.
Maintenant avec la disparition du réseau petites ondes français il ne me reste plus qu’a apprendre l’espagnol puisque que ces stations arrivent très fort dans le sud ouest .
Bonjour, Christian,
Ç’est drôle, mais un peu triste. La vérité est que, même dans les pays aussi avancé que la France, il est difficile de trouver un moyen plus efficace que la radio MW.
Merci pour votre commentaire.
Thomas
And also on 31 December 2015 coinciding with the closure of RTL on 1440 kHz and the AM transmitters of Deutschlandradio.
More on Deutschlandradio here: http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/abschaltung-mittelwelle.2571.de.html
An interview with Eugene Muller, head of BCE, on RTL is found here: http://radioforum.foren.mysnip.de/file.php?8773,file=6537,filename=08_Tageblatt_1218.pdf
Progress, I’m not able to use streaming, my internet package would be ate up fast, and I just don’t care for everything on the internet.I like radios.but that’s me and what I prefer.