So Farewell Then GB News

In a few short weeks, Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”) has gone from bright new star of the broadcast firmament to, well, yesterday’s news. The new market entrant, brought to you in glorious Brill-O-Vision™, had a good opening night, went downhill from there, and has continued its downward ratings path ever since.

Yesterday evening, Owen Jones looked at the ratings and concluded “GB News continues its catastrophic collapse. Its audience has halved in a fortnight”. The channel’s weekly reach had declined to less than a third of that enjoyed by Sky News, and less than 20% of that of the BBC News Channel. The audience was 0.3% of the total for broadcast.

Musician Ian Evans perused the numbers today and mused “GBNews were probably useful overall. They made ‘anti-wokeness’ look obviously unappealing and a way to lose advertisers. Some of the worst bigots gambled on them and lost. The public are more aware of why BLM are needed now and how dull its opponents arguments are”.

But why was he talking of the channel in the past tense? Ah well. This may have been not unconnected to an incident earlier today when former BBC man and ex-Tory spinner Guto Harri, who has replaced Colin Brazier on the daytime show co-presented with Mercy Muroki, had talked live on air of “underestimating” racism, and then taken the knee.

As free sheet Metro has reported, “A reporter on GB News took the knee live on air after suddenly realising the importance to make a statement to combat racism in football … Guto Harri said he now ‘gets’ why the England team refused to listen to the critics before taking the knee himself [saying] ‘having seen just how close to the surface how hideously ugly racism among some English fans is, I totally get it why this squad throughout wanted to make a stand, day in, day out, every time they took to the pitch'”. And the result?

“Harri’s stance was too much [for some] loyal viewers of the broadcaster who have actually vowed to boycott the channel entirely”. The Brexit Defence Alliance appeared to be one of them. “THOUSANDS TURN-OFF [GB News] AS THEY BEGIN VIRTUE-SIGNALLING TO VIEWERS AND TAKE-THE-KNEE! WHAT HAPPENED TO [Andrew Neil]’s PROMISE OF ANTI-WOKE JOURNALISM? NO BETTER THAN THE BBC. THEY DESERVE TO LOSE WHAT'S LEFT OF THEIR DIMINISHING VIEWERS”. Eh? Speak up!

Battersea bedroom dweller Paul Watson added “GB News' credibility didn't last long. What does this melt think he's doing?” Dick Delingpole, brother of the self-styled saviour of western civilisation, wanted to know “Who’s surprised that GB News turns out to be just another Sky/BBC?” And one Brexiteer brains trust stopped his grey matter hurting long enough to moan “No more GBNEWS for me. This is stoking racism”.

David Conn of the Guardian looked at the slow-motion car-crash and observed “GB News now too woke for its viewers - they need to start another whole new channel”. It was going downhill fast when Brillo left the building, and now it’s going downhill even faster.

GB News was for a time, but not for all time. Just rejoice at that news.

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