The Ashes begin next week in Cardiff and end in August at the Oval. Few events of 2009 are more keenly awaited, with England determined to win back the urn they lost to Australia in 2007. Whether or not they do, millions of us will be following the epic contest on radio. Earphones will be sprouting everywhere, so as not to disturb others or alert bosses to surreptitious listening. Radio will come into its own, as it always does during a big sporting occasion: not everyone has, or wants to watch, or is able to watch Sky for the Ashes, or BBC television for Wimbledon. As always, radio is the faithful and portable companion.

Every Test match held in this country since 1957 has been covered ball-by-ball by BBC radio, a remarkable piece of continuity and commitment. Thus it is again this year. Test Match Special will go out on Radio 4 long wave as it always does, and there will be many people who get to this sentence, breathe a sigh of relief and read no further. For them, that will be enough, evidence that some of the best things in life do not change. They will be further reassured that the TMS stalwarts of Aggers, Blowers and CMJ (Jonathan Agnew, Henry Blofeld and Christopher Martin-Jenkins to give them their proper names) will be leading the commentary team once more. There will be some modest innovations, including radio’s first cricket comedy (Yes, It’s the Ashes, beginning on Saturday morning on 5 Live) and two new Australian summarisers joining the TMS team: Jason Gillespie and Matthew Hayden, who have both played for their country in Ashes sides.

Every minute of the ball-by-ball coverage will, however, go out on Radio 5 Live Sports Extra as well as Radio 4 long wave. Given that each day’s play takes eight hours, and there are up to five days in each Test match, and five Test matches in all, that means there are 200 hours of output that are being duplicated — with two stations broadcasting the same output for the whole of this time. Is not this a wasteful use of the spectrum? The BBC responds by saying that cricket on Radio 4 long wave is removed twice a day by the Shipping Forecast (something even more important than the cricket), so the services are not identical. Strictly speaking that is true, but it does not deal with the substantive point.

The truth of the matter is that the BBC would not dare to remove cricket from long wave, because both TMS and long wave are sacred national institutions and you tamper with them at your peril. It is on 5 Live Sports Extra as well because that is a digital-only station and digital is the likely future: one day, certainly not as soon as 2015, as hasty readings of Lord Carter’s recent report suggested, but perhaps 2025, when the majority of all radio listening is on a digital platform, there will be no long wave and no medium wave in Britain, because analogue will be switched off.

Personally, I cannot wait for the stumps to be drawn on it, having struggled to hear 5 Live on its medium-wave frequencies last week and realised with a heavy heart just how many millions of hours of listening have been ruined by the sounds of deep fat frying. But digital will not replace analogue until an elected government (not Carter, who is unelected) is satisfied that it is not disenfranchising the people who vote for it by so doing, and in the meantime the Ashes will enjoy a luxurious innings.

paul.donovan@sunday-times.co.uk

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