It’s just been announced that LBC is going to go national on February 11th. We will be transmitting on the National Digital One DAB platform meaning that for the first time all our programmes can be heard all over the country. You can imagine what massive implications have for the station both in terms of audience building and content. The announcement came on this morning’s edition of CALL CLEGG and I imagine there was a collective cheer in the Global Radio newsroom.

Global is a massive player in the radio industry. In our building we have the studios of Capital, Capital Extra, Gold, Smooth, Classic FM, XFM and Heart. LBC now joins those stations as national brands. Only four months ago LBC celebrated its 40th birthday. This relaunch on February 11th means we change from ’London’s Biggest Conversation’ to ‘Leading Britain’s Conversation’ as our strapline.

It seems unbelievable that Britain hasn’t already got a national talk radio station, but ever since Talk Radio became Talk Sport there has been a massive gap in the market. 5 Live has phone-in elements to it, as do BBC local radio stations, but with LBC it’s 24/7. We know there’s a real appetite for it as our audience in London has doubled in recent years. I remember the reaction from listeners in some parts of the country when LBC was taken off the local DAB transmitters. I think we had something like 4,000 emails from Yorkshire alone. Well, all those listeners can now enjoy us on the national DAB platform once again. Of course we are already on Freesat and Sky (channel 0112) and people can listen online via the LBC app, so there has always been a sizeable national listenership but it will be great to be taking more phone calls from Cornwall, Birmingham, Llandudno and Auchtermuchty.

Global founder & executive president Ashley Tabor said…

LBC has been a pioneer since it began broadcasting as the first commercial radio station 40 years ago, challenging traditional formats and producing innovative shows. Under Global’s ownership last year we introduced a first in UK radio with the Deputy Prime Minister hosting his own weekly show on LBC, ‘Call Clegg’ giving LBC’s listeners, the public, a chance to hold a senior political figure directly to account for the first time every week. From February 11th 2014 Global is investing further in digital radio, and in speech radio, to create the UK’s first national commercial news talk radio station, giving listeners across the whole of the UK a voice and a forum to engage in the issues that matter to them. I’m incredibly proud to bring the winning LBC formula to listeners across the UK and for Global to lead the way in the development of UK media brands.”

This is how my colleague Nick Ferrari announced the news this morning…