It was recently announced that OFCOM, the UK regulator has given permission to talkSPORT to close down 7 of its 18 AM transmitters on the Medium Wave band. It is claimed that the move will reduce its national AM radio coverage from 92% to 88.9% of the UK adult population.
The reasons given by talkSPORT for these changes include declining listenership to its AM service as people turn to alternative platforms, considered against the ongoing viability of each transmitter site.
The transmitter sites talkSPORT will close are...
1053 kHz - Stockton (Durham/North Yorkshire)(1kw), Southwick/Brighton (West Sussex)(2kw), Rusthall (Tunbridge Wells)(4kw)
1071 kHz - Clipstone (Nottinghamshire)(1kw)
1089 kHz - Lisnagarvey (nr Belfast)(13kw)
1107 kHz - Duxhurst (Surrey)(1kw), Lydd (Kent)(2kw)
As can be seen from the list above, the stations are relatively low power for an AM transmitter with levels of about 1 to 4 kw. The highest power transmitter is the 13kW output from Lisnagarvey near Belfast.
The remaining 11 transmitters will continue to transmit on 1053, 1071, 1089 & 1107 kHz. Some of these run in the region of 80 to 130 kilowatts so it's likely that most listeners in the UK won't notice any difference when the seven listed transmitters above are turned off.
A timeline for the closures wasn't given but it seems likely that it will be done after an appropriate warning to listeners.
The trend of closing down AM transmitters continues as more and more people opt to listen to radio stations via FM and DAB or online by using Smartspeakers or phone apps.
