GB News - Not Waving But Drowning

In another vain effort to bolster its dwindling ratings, Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”), which claims to be British but is financed substantially by interests in other countries, has been celebrating ten weeks on air, while some of its more easily led supporters in the Tory Party have tried to kick campaign group Stop Funding Hate for having the audacity to exist, an exercise as mystifying as it is pointless.

Neither the celebration, nor the SFH bashing, have achieved anything. Nor will they, except to suggest that GB News is not in the business of news, nor in the business of journalism, but is a straight up right wing propaganda outfit. This revelation came following the attack on SFH, promoted by the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph.

The Tel claims “In a letter to Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, ten Conservative MPs called for an investigation into Stop Funding Hate, which they said advocates a ‘cancel culture’ by pressuring firms into pulling advertisements from the new broadcaster and several tabloid newspapers … Stop Funding Hate is registered as a Community Interest Company (CIC) … but CICs must not be formed ‘for political purposes’”.

In other words, ten Tory MPs wrote a letter and tipped off the Tel. But one look at SFH’s successful CIC application, where its activities are defined as “To promote ethical advertising”, and detailed appropriately, shows that it is doing nothing wrong. This has not stopped GB News host Colin Brazier approvingly quote Tweeting the Tel with the comment “Who would’ve thunk it”. His pal Alastair Stewart went with “We knew they were stupid and malicious but this is even more interesting”. Which is one dead giveaway.

Instead of doing some actual journalism, they merely took the Tel’s evidence-free drivel and shovelled it on. Thus they appear to reveal themselves not to be in the the news or journalism business, just propaganda. And talking of propaganda and GB News, there is the 10 week celebration. These are the claims made in support of that celebration.

“Today marks our 10th week on air! Already we’ve … Beaten Sky News’ peak audience ratings - 5 times [so they didn’t beat it 65 times] … Got the highest watch time of any UK news channel [maybe the viewers fell asleep] … Had almost 1 billion hits online [meaningless without comparison to other broadcasters] … We give a voice to people who felt left out of the national conversation [no citation]”. More witless propaganda.

But still they peddle it:”We’re punching above our weight - thanks to you! Our viewing figures are on the up against big establishment channels”. Enough. Let’s see just how “on the up” GB News really is. Former BBC man Robert Says has some figures for us.

“Average number of people on 19.08 who watched … BBC News Channel: 104k … Sky News: 62k … GB News 24k … Average number of people on 19.08 who watched from 19h00 to 20h00 on … BBC News Channel: 174k … Sky News: 88k … GB News: 78k”.

In other words, their average audience last Thursday was less than 40% that of Sky News, and less than 24% that of the BBC News Channel. Their star host Nigel “Thirsty” Farage trailed in third behind both of those broadcasters. After 10 weeks, they are nowhere.

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

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