Snap, crackle and pop with Radio 4 Extra Extra

The BBC has turned off its long wave radio service after 101 years. But ardent fans of the special sound quality of the long wave service need not worry. The BBC is launching a new service called Radio 4 Extra Extra (to distinguish it from Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra).

The new service, referred to as BBC R4XX, is a digitally enhanced copy of standard Radio 4 output, with the trademark long wave snap, crackle and pop added back in electronically, along with unintelligible mumbling and some dropouts. The dropouts will mostly be old Radio 1 DJs.

Long Wave fans regard this solution as very unsatisfactory. One said, 'I'm cheesed off about buying a new radio. The valves in my radio have plenty of life left in them. I don't pay my licence fee for this sort of PC, woke, nanny-state nonsense.

'I was psychologically prepared to move to the medium wave, or possibly short wave. I have a massive allergy to FM transmissions, and will only buy an FM radio over my own dead body. As for DAB, that's not for me. And you can keep DAB+ as well. And I'm not sure that you can properly call internet radio 'broadcasting'.

'I'm petitioning the BBC to reissue old long wave broadcasts in a format that's accessible to true fans - wax cylinders, eight track, or, for the tech-savvy, Sinclair Microdrive.'

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