How to Retune Your Radio & How to Keep Listening After MW closures

Medium Wave (MW) services are closing in many areas, but you can still enjoy your favourite stations in several easy ways. This helpguide explains how to retune your radio and the best alternatives to MW listening.

Image of a black portable radio with silver buttons and a handle

1. Retuning Your Radio

Listening on FM and Retuning

If the scan doesn’t find the station you want, you can manually tune by turning the tuning dial or using the + / – buttons to move to a specific frequency.
FM radios have a Scan or Auto‑Tune button. Pressing it will search for all available stations and store them automatically.

Listening on DAB and Retuning

On DAB radios, retuning is often called Rescan.
Look for a menu option such as Rescan, Auto‑Tune, or Update Stations.
Select it, and the radio will search for all available DAB stations again.
Once complete, choose your station from the updated alphabetical list.

Car Radios

Many modern car radios update automatically.
If yours doesn’t, look for Auto‑Tune, Scan, or Update Stations in the radio menu.
If you’ve travelled far from home, a fresh scan helps pick up local transmitters.

2. Alternatives to MW Listening

There are several reliable ways to keep listening without MW.

FM Radio

Available on most radios and in all cars.
Offers clearer sound than MW and better coverage across the UK.

DAB/DAB+ Digital Radio

Provides more stations, clearer audio, and easy station selection by name.
Portable DAB radios are widely available for home and car use.

Radio on TV

You can listen to all BBC network radio stations (e.g., BBC Radio 2) on your television.
Digital‑only stations such as BBC Radio 4 Extra are also available.
Depending on your TV platform, you may also find BBC local or nations stations relevant to your area.
Simply select the channel number for the station you want.
- For example: BBC Radio 4 Extra is on Freeview channel 708.

BBC Sounds Website