LBC (originally the London Broadcasting Company) is Britain's first commercial independent local radio station, providing a service of news and information to London. LBC began broadcasting on October 8th 1973, days ahead of Capital Radio.

The station has had a turbulent history and almost disappeared in the mid-1990s when the original LBC company - then owned by Shirley Porter's Chelverton Investments - failed to have its licence renewed. The LBC name was not used on-air between October 1994 and July 1996.

LBC was owned between 1994 and 1996 by Reuters, which for most of that time operated the stations as London News 97.3FM and London News Talk 1152AM

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 operates two services; LBC 97.3 - a news/talk format station - and LBC News 1152 AM, a rolling news service.

Current LBC 97.3 presenters include Sandi Toksvig, Clive Bull and Iain Lee

Past LBC presenters include Boy George, Bob Holness, Frank Bough, Michael Parkinson, Gyles Brandreth, Jeremy Beadle, Tommy Boyd and Richard Littlejohn.

External links

• LBC official site (http://www.lbc.co.uk)
• LBC unofficial site (http://www.lbci.co.uk)
• Chrysalis, the parent company (http://www.chrysalis.com)
• Yahoo Groups LBC (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lbc)