Talking radio: Paul Robinson

LBC's AM service has been undermined by the reduction of its rolling news output, says consultant Paul Robinson.

The decision by LBC parent Global Radio to stop providing two separate 24-hour services for London is understandable, but it is also a retrograde and potentially fatal step for the AM station.

LBC News 1152 AM has been pruned back to just 81 hours a week and is now sustained by LBC 97.3 FM on weekdays from 7pm to 7am (and slightly longer at weekends).

Is the UK's largest city incapable of supporting a rolling news service? And cannot the UK's largest commercial radio group make all-day news work?

Jonathan Richards, LBC's programme director, says: "Advertisers want long listening hours, which LBC 1152 AM's format can't offer." The Q2 Rajar figures give the station a weekly reach of 290,000 listeners. However, with the average listener tuning in for only 5.6 hours a week, the total hours delivered are merely 1.62 million. This is low for London and results in LBC 1152 falling outside the capital's top 10 favourite radio stations.

For advertisers, it is easy to avoid the station. The audience is quite small, listeners tune in for short periods and they are older (largely 45+) and down-market (C2DE skewed). Worse still, the station is on AM, a declining waveband and one that crackles and fades after dark. But the BBC is the biggest elephant in the room.

Neil Fox has the number one commercial breakfast show in London. But the weasel word in that sentence is "commercial". The market leader in London is BBC Radio 4, with Radio 5 Live also rating strongly in the capital. So, although LBC News 1152 is a compelling format, it isn't cutting through. The harsh reality is that while it's fair game for commercial radio to complain about the BBC's resources and competitiveness, that is not the reason for LBC News's small listenership. It's simply that audiences trust the BBC more than commercial broadcasters for news, particularly national and international. This is not confined to radio. The BBC scores above ITV, Sky News, Channel 4 and Five and newspapers. So, LBC News was never going to, and never will, take significant bites out of Radio 4 and 5 Live.

LBC 97.3 FM, however, has a distinct market proposition. Positioned as "London's biggest conversation" it doesn't attempt to compete with the BBC. Instead it  "owns" listener-led topical debate on London issues, something BBC networks and Talk Sport can't execute as consistently. London Live is the only near competitor and is highly improved under editor David Robey, but its brief is different.

Where does that leave LBC news? I think its days are numbered. The advertising market is weak. AM is an inferior waveband and news is expensive. Global doesn't have any other London-based journalistic business that it can bolt LBC news onto.

Now, reduced to less than 50% of the broadcast week, the AM proposition can't build from here. The next logical step is to close it - but there's a risk. The Rajar figures reveal that the cross-listenership between LBC 97.3 FM and 1152 AM is very low - only around 40,000 listeners (5% of the total LBC audience). If LBC 1152 shut tomorrow, the total LBC reach would plummet by around a quarter of a million listeners unless it moved to
97.3 FM.

The station should migrate to FM and the cash saving used to safeguard LBC 97.3FM. It's an argument that needs to be put to Ofcom now.