GB News Has Tested British TV Rules To Breaking Point — Will 2024 Be Its Year Of Reckoning?
08.01.2024 - 10:12
/ deadline.com
Like it or loath it, GB News is a trailblazer.
The news station, backed by Brexit-supporting billionaire Paul Marshall, crash-landed on British screens in June 2021, but overcame tech and studio fails to establish itself as a genuine force, with a loyal following of around 3M viewers a month and an ability to set the agenda — if not always for the right reasons.
The channel provoked Rupert Murdoch into launching TalkTV and forced Sky News, the established commercial leader, into a major rethink of its schedule. GB News is now the channel of choice for over half of Tory party members, the people who picked Britain’s prime minister in 2022. Former PM Boris Johnson will join its presenting ranks as early as this month, Deadline hears.
In securing this foothold, GB News’ brand of opinionated broadcasting has begun to reinvent the idea of a news channel in the UK. It has also tested television rules to breaking point. Media regulator Ofcom ruled on five separate occasions last year that GB News transgressed its Broadcasting Code, a set of standards licensed TV channels are legally obliged to abide by. Another 13 investigations are ongoing.
This level of regulatory activity is unprecedented for a British-owned broadcaster in recent times. You have to go back to ITV’s abuse of premium-rate phone lines in 2008 to find a UK broadcaster that has kept Ofcom so busy. The regulator revoked RT’s license in 2022 for shamelessly transmitting Russian propaganda after the Kremlin invaded Ukraine, but a GB News insider acknowledged that this is not company the channel wishes to keep.
Deadline understands that Ofcom is expected to make another set of rulings on GB News early this year. Some think it is inconceivable that the channel
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