Farage And GB News - Two Edged Sword

The perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog had an alleged “exclusive” for their readers yesterday as they proclaimed “Farage Beat Sky And BBC’s Views Combined Last Night … Farage Continues Crushing BBC And Sky”. The presence of former Brexit Party Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage had scored some ratings for Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”).

There was more. “Nigel has now beaten Sky News every night since launch, and the BBC five times”. Oh look, it’s “Nigel” now - all far-right pals together. But do go on. “Not content with merely beating his taxpayer-funded rival, last night Farage’s GB News show saw his highest ratings yet – averaging 145.1 thousand viewers. How does this compare? Farage: 145.1k … BBC News: 113.1k … Sky News: 29.1k”. How wonderful was that?

Well, one hates to rain on this particular parade, but, as Jon Stewart might have said, two things here. One, Mr Thirsty, with his show’s sub-Partridge “Talking Pints” Feature, is only one hour of GB News’ day. And ratings for the rest of the day in question were, shall we say, at a rather lower level than 145k, as former BBC man Robert Coxwell has noted.

“Viewing figures. Farage on GB News for an hour had bumper numbers against the same hour on the BBC News Channel on 05 Aug. Average views at 19.00: GB News: 145k … BBC NCh: 113k … He’s a one-slot wonder for the channel when you look at the all day average … GB News: 24k … BBC NCh: 128k”. Fewer than 20% of the BBC average.

Coxwell had even worse news for GB News: breaking the numbers down over the 24 hours, they looked grim. “Viewing figures. Here's a snapshot of how much Farage is a one-slot wonder for GB News. Average numbers, 05 Aug: 06h - 09 … BBC NCh: 207k … GB News: 10k … 09h - 12 … BBC NCh: 149k … GB News: 5k (statistical 0) … 19h - 20 … BBC NCh: 113k … GB News: 145k … 21h - 0000: BBC NCh: 101k … GB News: 31k”.

And Two, Farage may have got the Gammonati tuning in, but there was bad news when it came to advertisers. The campaign previously joined by Stop Funding Hate and Ripples now has Led By Donkeys on board, and they announced yesterday “BREAKING Just got word that [Sainsbury’s] has pulled its advertising from GB News and Nigel Farage’s show. Amazing job everyone”. It certainly was. And there was more.

“After a couple of billboards, an advan at their HQ, more than 2.5 million views on films, and escalating pressure, Sainsbury’s did the right thing. (This tweet is careful corporate speak for ‘we’ve stopped now’)”. The Sainsbury’s Tweet had told that “We advertise across a wide range of outlets, including TV channels. Currently, we have no adverts scheduled with GB News. We had a campaign that has now ended”.

How many more will follow Sainsbury’s and drop not only The Thirsty Show, but GB News overall? If advertisers pass on Farage’s hour, GB News’ ratings for the rest of the day are so low that it isn’t worth them bothering. One headline presenter who is so, shall we say, “controversial” that he scares off the channel’s main source of income.

Can GB News handle any more of this kind of success? It’s still downhill all the way.

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