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Friday 16 July 2021

GB News Massacres Wounded Knee

Ratings have declined to the extent that, at various points this week, Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”) had so few tuning in that its audience was, effectively, zero. Its supposedly flagship presenter, former Murdoch editor Andrew Neil, has left for his petite maison on the French Riviera, with no date set for his return. The last thing the channel needed was to attract yet more ridicule.


So that is exactly what it did. By its own hand. GB News’ average evening audience - covering the period from 1800 hours to midnight - is now down to 22,000, well below that of Sky News, which is way behind the BBC News Channel. And the BBC News Channel attracts only a fraction of the audience of BBC1, BBC2, ITV and Channel 4.


That, together with the exodus of advertisers prompted by campaigns like Ripples and Stop Funding Hate, is why GB News is already in A Very Bad Place. But after former Tory spinner Guto Harri took the knee live on air, in solidarity with the racist abuse meted out to England’s footballers, the channel made its own bad situation very much worse.


At first, the mood was that Harri was entitled to express his view on taking the knee, because GB News was all about FREEZE PEACH. Indeed, his fellow host Neil Oliver told “My [GB News] teammate [Guto Harri] is right to say and do as he sees fit. I do the same. That’s the ethos of the channel. Free speech. We don’t all agree with each other - that’s the point, or else where’s the debate?” But two days later, all was changed.


There had been such a wave of indignation from the Gammonati - not that the average GB News viewer is at all racist, you understand - that FREEZE PEACH went out of the window. Whether Harri was thrown through the window as well is yet to be told.


GB News stands four square against racism in all its forms. We do not have a company line on taking the knee. Some of our guests have been in favour, some against. All are anti-racist. We have editorial standards that all GB News journalists uphold” told the channel’s Twitter feed, before adding “On Tuesday a contributing presenter took the knee live on air and this was an unacceptable breach of our standards”.


Eh? “We let both sides of the argument down by oversimplifying a very complex issue”. What will happen to Guto Harri? Jim Waterson had ominous news. “GB News spokesperson unable to say if Guto Harri, the former Boris Johnson spokesperson who took the knee on air in solidarity with England football team, is still going to have a job following backlash from furious viewers who feel channel has gone woke”.


I warned you, English - we know how to deal with counter-revolution! What will happen to the luckless Harri? Will he be forced to confess his distraction into momentary interest before the Brill-O-Vision Politburo? What of the imperialist running dog Oliver? Will there be any GB News hosts left by the end of September? Or even any GB News at all?


Will there be any point in Brillo bothering to leave his non-trivial patch of Grasse and journey north to the studio in not-really-metropolitan-honestly Paddington? Will the channel get to the end of the year to wish a Merry Christmas to all its viewer?

GB News has not yet reached the end of its road. But you can see it from there.


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17 comments:

Arnold said...

Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.

Anonymous said...

Scumbags all.

Good riddance.

May they rot in their own far right hypocrisy. Forever.

Mr Larrington said...

My pal Rogerzilla notes:

“It's just not racist enough for its target audience. They watched V for Vendetta and wished Prothero was real.”

David Walsh said...

And even Guido is whingeing (a good sign of thieves falling out). A sample "If you’re confused, reading the channel’s actual editorial charter won’t help much: its first point is that they maintain “the independence of [their] journalism“, and they stand for “the right of every individual to form and share their views.” If that’s true, Guido’s not sure how or why Guto’s kneeling breaches their standards. This morning Isabel Webster has taken Guto’s place pairing on the the show with Mercy Muroki. Guido understands that Guto hasn’t been “officially” fired – yet. No one has been able to tell us if, or when, he’ll be back on air...."

Anonymous said...

Maybe, just maybe, it's beginning to dawn that the last 42 years of London-centred corruption, thievery, hypocrisy and racism is an urfascist nightmare imposed on the rest of the country.

Maybe people will actually want to deep clean Parliament, Whitehall and Oxbridge until we're finally rid of Britain's rotten de facto one party capitalist state and its corporate media.

But I wouldn't make book on it. This is a country scared shitless of its own shadow.

grim northerner said...


how long till darren 'craftywank' grimes slimes is offered a full slot?

Simon said...

There will presumably be widespread condemnation from the usual free speech brigade that Harri has been cancelled and deplatformed. Won't there?

you couldn't make it up said...

Far right neo nazi Rats fighting in a bag
Cunts all of em

Anonymous said...

Want to see media dishonesty and smears in "action"?

See a rerun of the rigged Kuentssberg far right anti-Labour propaganda bullshit on tonight's 6pm BBC "News". Starmer, of course, in full red tory Quisling mode.

A microcosm example of the sheer rotten lies and dishonesty of British corporate media. One more reason to hold "journalists" responsible for their role in turning Britain into a seedy, reactionary shit hole.

J said...

What's funniest is the "how dare you boycott Gammon Bastard News, the news of the National Front" crowd from two weeks ago are now all for boycotting the aforementioned Gammon Bastard News because its not racist enough for them.

Did none of them learn the lessons when Toilet Paper UK tried to shift from the US to the UK and ended up tweeting into the void with little to no interactions (apart from the bots, and even the bots have mostly given up).

There are so many GBN sockpuppets tweeting before it went live that they probably believed their own hype that it was going to great. There really doesn't seem to be that big a market for neo-fash Racist Gammons needing a racist gammon news station - unlike within the US and its Faux News market.

Mr Larrington said...

The Graun is reporting the departure of producer Gill Penlington and director of programming John MacAndrew. Your ship is holed below the waterline, Brillo. And to add to his woes Alastair Stewart is in dock after breaking his hip in a riding accident.

I probably shouldn’t laugh, but I’m going

[Laughs]

Arnold said...

Hoist with their own petard. They redefined "woke" and "taking the knee", and it's come round and bitten them on the bum.
You'd need a heart of stone not to laugh.

Anonymous said...

The funniest sight of all is Neil's fat arse waddling for the hills when it became obvious he and his "colleagues" had birthed a lemon.

The lardy far right tory shithouse.

Anonymous said...

GB News has reacted with utter cowardice to the events of the last week and was clearly hoping for a 'week of celebration'if England won the Euros final.
That they couldn't handle the nasty stuff we've seen with any maturity merely reinforces the perception that they're an amateur operation and has just hastened the inevitable demise.

Sam said...

Sad to hear the debacle about GBH News. Pity you don't have quality TV like us Down Under with our up market Big Brother franchise which has just imported popular celebrities the Trump devotee Caitlyn Jenner and the lovely Katie Hopkins to grace our screens. Hopkins is currently mocking strict Lock Down rules handed to her by the Federal Police and frightening hotel staff by refusing to wait 30 seconds as meals are delivered and wrenching the door open while they stand there.

Mr Larrington said...

In a highly unusual case of an actual rat boarding a sinking ship, BrilloVision has turned to Niggles Fartrage to save its rapidly-shrivelling bacon.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jul/17/gb-news-turns-to-nigel-farage-as-its-saviour-after-ratings-freefall

Jonathan said...

In further news Piers 'The Flounce' Morgan in talks to keep talking about his favourite subject - himself and Meghan ..
Another fat rat boarding a sinking ship..