LBC News Discussion

Its a good and bad development in my opinion. Its good the UK has another straight forward rolling news radio service. The NEWSRADIOUK station is a bit meh. The negative part is that London loses out on any true local 24hr (-ish) news service. Even though the station was not really hyper-focused on London. All that is now going to be gone. IMO a city the size of London needs 24hr broadcast news outlet. With this development it loses this. (Yes I know part of the schedule was dedicated to LBC National in the evening.) Oh well. I wonder anyone has the balls and the pockets to launch a CBSN Local-type streaming service for London. Seeing as BFMTV Paris and its new sister channels are going from strength to strength....SkyNews/NBCUniversal/Comcast Im looking at you.....Any road....roll on Global News National Radio!

That might be true if LBC London News was actually filled with local content. I've just listened for 15 minutes and except for the travel news (which will almost certainly continue as a split London/national service going forward), there was a pre-recorded wheel of sport, business and showbiz that had nothing to do with London. Filler from the Leicester Square team and Sky News Radio currently makes up a large part of the fairly uninspiring output; I imagine the revamped station will have a bit more oomph and be all the better for it.



I imagine the torturous experience of London Live has snuffed out the very remote chance that someone might look at doing this.

LBC's previous owners had a bit of a chequered history with rolling news formats. What is now LBC London News started when the new licensee too over from LBC in 1994. IIRC they started with a 20 minute format, but also tried 30, 15 and then went a bit long form before sticking at 20 with a station called 'News Direct'

That lasted a while and was a comparative success, although the only things people remember it for is its travel news 'on the 1s' and it's over reliance on ITN TV audio at the end of it life.

When Chrysalis took it over they moved to MW and put the more popular talk format on FM. The MW version sort of languished there and didn't get much attention, but seems to hold its own in the ratings now, though I wonder how many Rajar respondents get it confused with the main LBC station.

Considering until Sunday evening that for 12 hours a day, the station simulcasts LBC, it wouldn't be surprising. However the Rajar justifies trying the rolling news format on a national platform.

There's no confirmation that the station will be live overnight, but I suspect if it does, it'll be the first time since Reuters operated the station as 'London News 97.3'

Like the LBC FM station, this station has had numerous rebrands.

London News 97.3
News 97.3
97.3 FM.
News Direct 97.3 (The format was based on WINS New York)
ITN News Direct
News Direct (after Chrysalis acquired the station from London News Radio)
LBC News 1152 (Frequency swap in 2003)
LBC London News

Some airchecks.









I couldn't find any airchecks from LBC News 1152 during the noughties or the current LBC London News on YouTube.

LBC News overnights were live from Bramley Road in the early Chrysalis era 2003/2004 ish.

Later they shared TOTH bulletins between the two stations, then the newsreader did an 1152-only sequence till xx:10 then the next 20 minutes were automated with 'best of' material from the daytime output. It wasn't a bad setup but then they scrapped that in favour of full simulcasting overnight.

The amount of simulcasting is a bit disappointing really considering that one of the main reasons the original LBC lost it's license was because it simulcasted so much of it's output

Martin Stanford would be perfect for overnights if they do go live throughout

Have to say that I loved the 2003/04 era of LBC News. The weekend pairing of the legendary Douglas Cameron and Katie Breathwick was fantastic. It was almost like the era of Bob Holness and Doug on the AM Programme.

From what I recall, Bob even came into the weekend show to discuss the old days of AM on LBC News between the regular features.

Thank god we're finally getting a decent amount of stereo stations thanks to the DAB+ switchover!

Not a big fan of fantasy schedules, but as an educated guess of a schedule.

6-10am Jim Diamond (Current LBC London News breakfast presenter)
10-1: Lisa Aziz (after she does her breakfast shift on LBC)
1-4: Ian Payne
4-7: Martin Stanford
7-midnight: Global's Newsroom journalists on rotation
Midnight: 6am: Either a loop of the 11pm news bulletin or another Global's Newsroom journalist on rotation with a lot of automation such as pre-recorded travel, weather and sport.

Lisa Aziz is on drive with Eddie Mair these days.

Shows the last time I listened to LBC in the morning! Who's the bulletin reader with Nick these days?