Why do I hear silence on Radio 4 every hour?

At times during the day the 主播大秀 reconfigures the Radio 4 service on DAB to allow an additional audio stream to be added.听

At 09:44, Radio 4 is changed from Stereo to Mono audio and this allows capacity to broadcast 鈥淭he Daily Service鈥 as an additional audio stream until 10:00 when Radio 4 is restored to Stereo. There are other programmes broadcast in this way on Radio 4 such as 鈥淵esterday in Parliament鈥.

The programme schedule is structured so that there should be a period of silence during these changes but they are unnoticeable to the listener e.g. such as at the end of the last pip at the top of the hour.听Depending on the make and model of receiver, these configuration changes can still be detected by the listener but it should be a gap of less than a second whilst the receiver adjusts to the new configuration.