The government has launched a review to protect the future of Britain’s most trusted medium, allowing the nation to study the FM knob in a calm, evidence based manner before anyone turns it.
More than 85 per cent of UK adults still listen to radio each week, while 74.6 per cent of listening now happens through digital platforms. Ministers will therefore examine whether Britain can continue receiving traffic reports without accidentally becoming a podcast about traffic reports, followed by an advert for a service that can remember traffic reports.
The review will consider a possible managed transition away from FM in the 2030s, the future distribution of radio services, digital terrestrial television and artificial intelligence. Engineers immediately began searching for a setting marked “keep the nice bit where the presenter tells you it is raining”.
Martin Frequency, who has listened to the same breakfast show since 1998 out of loyalty and mild fear, welcomed the review. “I am open to progress,” he said. “Provided progress remains between 88 and 108, plays three songs I know, and apologises when it talks over the weather.”
Officials will investigate listener behaviour and make recommendations on radio distribution into the early 2040s. This gives every family car enough time to lose its aerial, find it again in a garage drawer, and hold a small referendum on whether Bluetooth has ruined human connection. The referendum will be conducted through a button nobody can identify.
The announcement coincides with World Radio Day, whose 2026 theme is radio and AI. The technology may offer personalised listening and fact checking, although its first public duty will apparently be interrupting the shipping forecast to ask whether anyone would like a premium plan. Even the foghorn will need to create an account.
Until the review reports in autumn 2026, the future of radio remains safely inside a kitchen, slightly crackly, next to a biscuit tin. Britain has been asked not to panic about the possible end of FM. If the signal disappears, a cheerful voice will return shortly afterwards to explain that the silence is part of a managed transition, and that the nation’s patience has been successfully preserved for further consultation.
By the time the final recommendation arrives, the old radio may be the only device in the house that still works without demanding an update. Ministers will call this resilience. The radio will call it knowing where the knob is.
