Sadly, not the late, and quite probably unlamented cinema chain (not that Cineworld is a whole lot better with useless security guards supposedly checking that I did video-phone films, and too few people manning the ticket desk at the weekend), but that ultimate flavour-of-the-nanosecond buzzword “user generated content.”
Today we learnt that LBC is rebranding itself – no longer will the initials stand for London Broadcasting Company. Now they’ll mean London’s Biggest Conversation. This shouldn’t be confused with “New” Labour’s Big Conversation (now seemingly broken).
At the same time, the similarly named LBC 1152 will become the far more sensibly monickered Sky News Radio for London.
But what made me laugh was the suggestion that LBC broadcasts “3000 hours of user-generated content a year.” As Media Guardian has also pointed out – they really mean “phone-ins.” And in any case, this “content” isn’t entirely user-generated; most phone-ins rely on relatively skilled radio hosts and guests to come up with subject matters that listeners are interested in talking about. Then they have to challenge the listeners’ views to make interesting radio. The listener is indeed an essential part of the mix for such radio, but then most stations rely on phone-calls, email and texts these days.
The other day Zoe Williams in The Guardian noted the following regarding Channel 4 Radio’s licence bid:
The bit that tickles me is the Channel 4 content. It is pitched to rival Radio 4, which heady task its director of radio, Nathalie Schwarz, says it plans to achieve with drama, documentary and “challenging speech-based content”. Is it possible to have any love of speech and yet use a phrase like “challenging speech-based content”? I will have a sip of my stimulating, caffeine-based beverage and come back to you on that.
Can we please have a moratorium on using the word “content”? To my mind it completely devalues your programming, music, reporting, analysis, conversation, contributions, or whatever it really is that you’re offering and soliciting. It’s a meaningless buzzword that proves nothing except that you read the marketing press fervently to prove you’re down with the kids and are following all the new trends.
I shall say nothing more except to mention that of course these views are my own and obviously don’t represent those of my employer.