RTÉ claim Longwave has more reach that medium wave. LW travels further than MW during the day, but not at night. But more reach? Reach means getting onto more radios. As MW radio ownership in so much greater than LW radio ownership (based on manufacturing figures researched here) Medium wave will always have greater reach until LW outpaces MW on radio sets made for lets say 30 years. LW is being depreciated faster than MW in car radios made for the continent of Europe by the 4 big car makers. Reaching people is what radio reach is all about not balance sheets and old technology.
There is a technology older than RTE’s new toy (23 year old DAB), that is the old MW TX they use in Tullamore on half power. If they had the foresight to invest in a modern MW TX designed this century rather than in the middle of the last century, this would bring savings from energy efficiencies equal to 65% at same power. Millions of € could be saved, and think of the green house gas that would not be created on both the old clapped out MW & not yet deployed DRM LW TX where the energy efficiencies grow up to 90% where the TX needs to run at -7DB to cover the same ground plane / service area.
Killing MW to fund DAB is a crazy move by RTE. crazy crazy crazy. RTÉ intend to switch off 567kHz on Easter Monday 24th March 2008 after 82 years on MW.