Onions was the brains behind LBC (London Broadcasting Company) and its sister, the national commercial radio news service IRN (Independent Radio News).In place of the BBC's gravitas, he introduced a lighter, jauntier approach to news presentation akin to that of a tabloid newspaper. He was influenced by American broadcasting from his time as the BBC's New York organiser, and introduced the three-minute "snapshot" bulletin in which news was always moving forward, rather than just a summary of recent history. It helped to pave the way for a concept of "rolling news".Onions employed a talented team of young reporters and, by way of a backhanded compliment, the BBC, along with ITN and Channel 4, was not slow to recruit from the Onions stable of go-getters. Onions launched the careers of the journalists Jon Snow and Peter Allen, engaged Carol Thatcher as a phone-in host and made figures such as Bob Holness, Dickie Arbiter and Douglas Cameron household names. Onions had brisk and exacting standards allied to charm and a quirky good humour. He was adept at coining journalistic mantras such as "good news bad, bad news good". Tough though he could be, he was instinctively kind and considerate and won many friends among his employers.