The day they killed LBC

Today is a sad day. A very sad day. For today I was forced to say goodbye to LBC. Forever. Today LBC radio was switched off from Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) in the North-West. Today we lost a few different stations, but most significantly, we lost LBC. LBC is gone, not even making its 40th birthday. How very unfair. How very sad. Today I am wearing a black armband. Today I am in shock and mourning.

Most of the country has no idea what local ‘talking radio‘ is, let alone what LBC is (or was). The commercial sector has only ever brought the public repetitive pop’n’prattle radio around the country. But, in London the first ever commercial radio station (ever!) in the UK, born in October 1973, was LBC. In the early days it was the London Broadcasting Company. Over the years it went through many changes, including losing the ‘LBC‘ name, changing hands many times and finally ending up as just a brand owned by Global, alongside brands like Capital and Heart. Today, the LBC brand has a positioning statement of “London’s Biggest Conversation“, and it does what it says on the tin.

LBC is not a music station. Its modus operandi is to have a series of hosts who introduce a subject and bring in experts alongside lay people to chew over the fat on that topic. It’s an exchange of ideas about ‘stuff’, not people calling in to report a lost budgie or any of the pointless ‘conversations’ that infest BBC local radio for extremely old people.

LBC is of course, very London centric. And, it’s not unreasonable to say that as an “ex-Pat” Londoner I can probably identify with a lot of its output and a lot of its attitude.

Hell, aren’t ex-Pats droning on about radio in places they don’t live and haven’t lived in for ages, such a pain in the arse? It annoys me when I see ex-Pats droning on about anything to do with the UK. It annoys me to the point where I want to stamp on their heads for talking about my country whilst they are living and working in a different country. My country is nothing to do with them.

But, listening to the callers to LBC, a fair, yet reducing, quantity are coming from outside of London, from people listening to LBC via DAB. Area by area is slowly being switched off, and as each area goes, the number of callers from outside London goes down. Within a few weeks, LBC will broadcast all alone and only in London.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you say that I can listen via the internet or my TV. True, I can. Indeed, I have a number of Pure (brand) Internet radios through which I can listen to LBC. This is something I shall still do in home and office. However, it’s not so easy when driving, or when away from nice chunky broadband, or when the 4G or 3G signal is lacking, is it? No other delivery system beats through air broadcasting, does it? It was perfect when LBC was on DAB. Now it’s gone.

There are so many other pointless samey radio stations spewing out via DAB. Couldn’t they cut down some of these in order to find space to bring LBC back to the rest of the UK?

Better still, couldn’t they launch a national talking radio station akin to LBC, so that there would be a little bit more than just the same 300 songs being played via 20 different commercial radio stations on DAB?

Farewell LBC, I miss you.