RTL switches off longwave

French broadcaster RTL has switched off its giant Beidweiler longwave transmitter in Luxembourg.

RTL, which used the 234 kHz frequency, was the last major French station to use this historic mode of low-frequency broadcasting introduced in the 1930s and capable of transmitting over very long distances.

The measure should enable the group to reduce its electricity consumption by some 6,000 megawatt hours (MWh) per year, the equivalent of 3,000 people in France.

On the Jan. 1 switch-off, veteran French broadcaster George Lang tweeted: ” Voilà, c’est fini. Goodbye, good old longwaves, you did a good job for so long a time. You now belong to the history of Radio-Luxembourg and RTL. Now, to capture us, make way for new technologies FM, DAB, streaming on rtl.fr, the RTL app, connected speakers.”