[G6Tanuki]

From a business perspective remember that as the number of stations wanting to broadcast on MW declines, those remaining will inevitably see their costs go up.

There are plenty of fixed costs associated with operating a transmitter site [Mast maintenance, insurance, business-rates to name but three] and as the number of users goes down there are fewer opportunities for these costs to be shared.

If the users have had any sense they will have negotiated some tight contracts with Arqiva which should limit cost-hikes but that will inevitably change when the next contract-renewal comes due.

Being the last-customer of an expensive transmitter site could turn out to be horribly expensive as you'll be picking up all the costs.

No doubt the likes of Absolute have some solid figures on costs vs audience reach/range for the various modes, on which they're basing their decisions. I don't really see that there's any sensible way to keep AM broadcasting viable in the near/long term... it's largely irrelevant to the vast majority of the population who have other more convenient ways to access their preferred content.