Abu Dhabi: The BBC World Service has announced that it will end its Arabic and English radio service broadcasting on Abu Dhabi’s 90.3FM as of Tuesday.

Audiences will still be able to access the BBC World Service through the BBC’s online website, or by downloading the BBC’s Arabic iPhone application. Officials have attributed this move to financial reasons. “The BBC World Service is moving quickly towards a mix of radio and digital platforms and in this rapidly developing environment, regrettably, FM is no longer a cost-effective way of serving listeners in the UAE. This has resulted in the difficult decision to end this broadcast,” a BBC spokesman said in a statement.

“We would like to thank our audience for listening via FM over the past 10 years and hope you will stay tuned, as the BBC World Service can still be reached easily through a range of devices,” he added.

In fact, media experts have predicted that FM broadcasting will decline in the future and become primarily accessible through online services.

Dr Abeer Najjar, a media professor at the American University of Sharjah said: “News networks that choose to take the digital path have probably conducted studies that revealed why their FM transmission services are not the best way to reach their audiences. This is all about making better decisions about allocating resources without losing audience.”

Dr Najjar revealed that broadcasting is the most expensive form of media production as radio stations need to pay for their airwaves.

“Meanwhile, the infrastructure that is needed for live streaming is already in place both in Abu Dhabi and abroad and the UAE has very good internet services that are quite fast. So, even when in the car, people can still listen to news broadcasts via the internet as they normally would if they were using the radio to do so,” she added.

It is yet unclear whether the BBC has decided to end its FM transmission in other parts of the world.

A National Media Council official said that the BBC does not have an Abu Dhabi office or correspondent.

The BBC World Service has been live streaming on the FM in Abu Dhabi in 2003 and was broadcasting live all-day-long news in Arabic and English.