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After 88 years, Spain’s Radio Nacional de España will stop broadcasting its RNE and Radio 5 networks on medium-wave AM radio as the country’s public broadcaster seeks to expand its digital radio DAB+ footprint.
RTVE, the parent to RNE, formerly announced the end of RNE AM broadcasts on Nov. 18. The AM broadcasts will end “before Dec. 31” and listeners will be informed through a special campaign.
RNE and Radio 5 operate on approximately 32 different AM frequencies across Spain, according to the 2025 World Radio TV Handbook.
The following announcement started airing on RNE on Nov. 14. The voice of Pepa Fernández, the director of its weekend morning program, “No es un día cualquiera,” was heard on the MW RNE network, according to a recording provided by Jorge Garzón on the Medium Wave Info blog.
“Medium-wave technology brought us all these events, but now MW will cease because radio progresses as we do,” the announcement, translated from Spanish to English, said. “Now you listen to us via FM, mobile phones, smart speakers and we are developing our own new DAB+ network.”
Gorka Zumeta, a Madrid-based radio and podcast consultant, reported that Spain’s Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Administration is preparing a royal decree for DAB+ implementation.
The plan establishes that RNE must guarantee DAB+ coverage for 70 percent of Spain’s population in 2026 and 85 percent in 2027.
At the end of 2023, RTVE, the parent to RNE, announced plans to begin DAB+ broadcasts.
Zumeta described the RNE news as a “bombshell.” He noted that it was unusual for an RNE on-air announcement to precede any sort of press release from RTVE. But RTVE released its statement four days later.
Listenership and energy costs, Zumeta said, likely explain RNE’s decision to go forward with an AM shutdown. In 2013, Zumeta cited data that showed RNE’s AM broadcasts had approximately 176,000 listeners. In the latest Estudio General de Medios survey, RNE’s AM broadcasts registered only 69,000 listeners: 58,000 of them on the former Radio 1 and 11,000 on Radio 5 Todo Noticias broadcasts, according to Zumeta.
