Real tears

D Love may have done the trick - the latest radio listening figures, in terms of the devices we listen through, are enough to give the Goverment confidence to announce a switch off date for analogue. In the next two quarters we might even see bigger increases in digital device sales.

So the next generation will grow up without the magic of AM/medium wave, FM and longwave. No-one will have to remember 909 and 693, or 94.9, or "92 to 95FM" or 1500m or 198khz. The fields of Droitwich (Wychbold really) can be given over to more crinkly tin huts for distribution of DAB radios. No dials to twiddle to capture fading signals late at night. No stressed motorway journeys losing vital goal news under bridges.  No dodgy sessions singers trying to emote numbers for jingles. No need to "tune in".

Sad, really. In ten years time, a bit like vinyl, people will secretly return to analogue, building illegal little transmitters to broadcast to each other, because of the magic of the sound....