Think "user generated content" is a new phenomenon? Then think again. London talk radio station LBC says it has been doing UGC - rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? - for 34 years. It's called a phone-in.
LBC, which is renaming itself "London's Biggest Conversation", says it broadcasts around 3,000 hours of user-generated content a year.
It certainly sounds a lot sexier than "3,000 hours of phone-ins", but I'm not quite sure they get away with it.
"New research commissioned by LBC reveals the station compares to MySpace and YouTube in the way that listeners actively engage with presenters and programmes to generate original content," says a station press release. Yes, but without the video.
The downside of putting your "user generated content" on LBC - AKA ringing it up - is that you have to talk to the presenter on air at that time. The upside is you get a hotline straight into the lughole of London's thousands of taxi drivers, who are traditionally the station's heartland listeners.
But call LBC the "cabbie's favourite" at your peril. "Has John Plunkett listened to anything Chrysalis has done with LBC over the last four years?" writes reader Robert Anthony from High Wycombe.
"It is clearly a much improved and more wide ranging station than his derogatory statement that its is the 'London cabbies' favourite talk radio station'. It has come along way since its Fred Housego days.
"Maybe Elisabeth Mahoney could actually review it one day instead of continually listening to the BBC's output and let John know how far its come."
Better than that, Robert, I will tune in myself. I do sometimes, and a lot of you recommend Iain Lee, who is a lot better on the wireless than he was on the box.
But talk radio is an extraordinarily tough nut to crack. Just ask LBC parent Chrysalis, which has announced a "strategic review" of its radio assets, including music station Heart, which is likely to end with a sale of its broadcast business.
Chrysalis hired a load of big name presenters when it bought the station five years ago, one of a long line of relaunches which have failed to return the station to its early 80s heyday. Its sibling news station LBC News 1152 AM will also be relaunched, but only if Channel 4 wins the second commercial national digital multiplex, when it will be renamed Sky News Radio.
LBC has since gone back to basics, with the likes of Lee and breakfast presenter Nick Ferrari, and largely lets its listeners do the talking. But are you tuning in? And if so, do you drive a London cab?
