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 the 8th October 1973, a week ahead of Capital Radio.

Nowadays the initials LBC don't stand for anything and are simply used as a brand.

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

[edit] Current services

LBC 97.3 - talk and phone-ins
LBC News 1152 - continuous news

[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 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 28th 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 are bidding for the new radio licence in Greater Manchester area. The proposed station, GMBC, is based on the LBC format. In 2003, Chrysalis put together a similar bid for a West Midlands licence, with a proposed station called WBC. This bid, however, was unsuccessful, losing out to Kerrang 105.2.

[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 it's licence, they bidded for national AM licence but lost & also a consortium led by Associated Newspapers with former LBC controller Charlie Cox called Newstalk UK which also lost & it was awarded to Talk Radio UK (now called talkSPORT). Shortly after the crediters came in & 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 & 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.

Between 2002 and 2005 LBC Radio's managing director was Mark Flanagan. Since 2005 David Lloyd has filled that role.