LBC

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This article is about the London radio station. For other things named LBC, see LBC (disambiguation).

LBC Radio (originally the London Broadcasting Company) operates two London-based radio stations, with news and talk formats. LBC was Britain's first legal commercial Independent Local Radio station, providing a service of news and information to London. It began broadcasting on 8 October 1973, a week ahead of Capital Radio. The launch of LBC also saw the beginning of IRN's broadcasting, as LBC provided the service to independent local radio stations nationwide.

Nowadays the initials LBC don't stand for anything and are simply used as a brand; However, on his 1st April 2007 overnight show, Bill Buckley, (after a quickly-rumbled April Fool's joke claiming that the intitals were to be re-branded as "Let's Buy Celery") announced that the initials were in reality due to be re-branded to stand for an as-yet undisclosed name / phrase later in the year.

1 Current services
2 Launch
3 Expansion
4 Company history
5 Links
6 References

[edit] Current services

LBC 97.3 - newstalk format
LBC News 1152 - rolling news format

Both are also transmitted on DAB and via a live stream on the LBC website.

[edit] Launch

The launch in 1973 attracted considerable attention and a sizeable audience, particularly for the pairing of the celebrated journalist Paul Callan and the writer (later national newspaper editor and TV personality) Janet Street-Porter who contrived to create a new form of radio, albeit unintentionally. The pair were pitched as co-presenters of the morning drive-time show.^[1] The intention was to contrast the urbane Callan with the less couth Street-Porter, whose accents were respectively known to studio engineers as "cut-glass" and "cut-froat".

In the event friction between the ill-assorted pair led to an entertaining stream of one-upmanship that became required listening for many Londoners, the sharper put-downs being blamed for several collisions by motorists incapacitated with laughter. The programme was the first in the UK to combine interviews with celebrities and heavyweight political figures on the same show, blurring the line between classic British comedy and analysis of international affairs.

[edit] Expansion

Following Chrysalis' full acquisition of the Digital News Network (which it partly owned alongside other major commercial radio companies) on Friday 28 July 2006, the decision was taken to shut down the station at 5pm that night, and it was announced that the service would be replaced by LBC.

From September 2006 LBC broadcasts in the North West, West Midlands, Yorkshire, North East, South Wales & The West on the DAB platform. Each region has tailored news & information.^[2]

In a further show of the company's ambition to extend the brand, Chrysalis Radio made a bid, devised by current Managing Director David Lloyd for the new radio licence in Greater Manchester. The proposed station was GMBC and is based on the LBC format. Lloyd's bid failed with Ofcom awarding the licence to a GMG venture called Rock Talk. In 2003, Chrysalis put together a similar bid for a West Midlands licence, with a proposed station called WBC. This bid, however, was also unsuccessful, losing out to Kerrang 105.2 operated by emap.

[edit] Company history

The station has had a turbulent commercial history and almost disappeared completely in the mid-1990s when the original LBC company, then owned by Shirley Porter's Chelverton Investments, failed to have its two licences (LBC Newstalk and London Talkback Radio) renewed. After it lost its licence, they bid for a national AM licence but lost; a consortium, led by Associated Newspapers, was formed with former LBC controller Charlie Cox called Newstalk UK, but this was awarded to Talk Radio UK (now called talkSPORT). Shortly after, incoming radio station London News Radio bought it to make a smooth transition.

The LBC name was not used on-air at all between October 1994 and July 1996.

LBC was owned between 1994 and 1996 by Reuters who, for most of that time, operated the station as London News 97.3, a rolling news and travel information service on the FM band, and the phone-in driven service London News Talk 1152 on the MW band.

Between 1996 and 2002, LBC was part of London News Radio Limited, a company owned jointly by ITN, Daily Mail and General Trust, Reuters and the GWR Group. This new consortium revived the LBC name on 1152AM on 1 July 1996. At the end of 1996 the FM service was relaunched as News Direct 97.3FM.

LBC is currently owned by the Chrysalis Group and the brand is used for two services; LBC 97.3 - a talk format station - and LBC News 1152, a rolling news service.

Chrysalis trumpeted their purchase with the promise that they lift the listenership to at least one million from around 700,000 (LBC enjoyed an audience of more than two million in the early 1980s) but an array of presenters including Boy George, Henry Kelly, Caroline Feraday, Dr. Pam Spurr, Sandi Toksvig, (all no longer with the company) an array of on-air gimmicks and two managing directors has seen the audience remain largely static. LBC's 97.3FM's increase in audience has been at the expense of its AM service.

In 1995, the station's Managing Director Mark Flanagan left Chrysalis to set up a political consultancy company and was replaced by David Lloyd. Although he held no previous experience in the talk and chat radio genre, he has led a number of programme changes that included a 'Drive Time' slot presented by Iain Lee (since replaced by Paul Ross), a daily 'Big Quiz' which promises (but has yet to deliver) huge cash prizes (and has since been cut down to one show a week) and a number of weekend repeats. He also introduced a 'podcasting' service, now called LBC Plus and a number of premium rate promotional opportunities to boost falling advertising revenues experienced by the radio sector.

In February 2007, Chrysalis confirmed media speculation that they were 'reviewing' the entire radio operation at its investors request. Further media speculation from The Guardian suggested that the group had little option, due to shareholder pressure, to sell its radio arm, including LBC, raising up to £200,000,000 for new acquisitions while The Daily Telegraph suggested that it could be the subject of a 'management' buyout.