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Tuesday 7 September 2021

GB News - Viewers And Ads Vanish

The mood of desperation surrounding new broadcast media entrant Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”) may not be confined to the hangdog expression exhibited by host Neil Oliver at the weekend. The channel has welcomed mercenary hack Isabel Oakeshott - promoted as an “award winning journalist” ho ho ho - to bring her own inimitable alternative facts to the table. But elsewhere, news is grim.


More grim than having to employ Ms Oakeshott? Sadly, yes it is:not only have viewer numbers continued to fall, advertisers are also moving in the direction of away, with insufficient new ones prepared to come on board, such is the effectiveness of the campaign waged by Stop Funding Hate, Ripples, Led By Donkeys, and Sleeping Giants UK. GB News is like Siberia - they know where it is, but no-one wants to go there.

You think I jest? There are so few advertisers that during some “commercial breaks”, GB News is reduced to just showing a placeholder showing the channel’s logo and telling anyone watching “We’ll be back soon”. This might not be such a blow to its finances, were the viewer numbers, and those watching via YouTube, keeping up. But they are not.


After former Brexit Party Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage joined the less than stellar line-up of hosts, there was rejoicing as he twice beat the BBC News Channel (with whom GB News is not competing, as the latter is not a news channel, but a propaganda outlet). Now, those days of 100,000 plus viewers are over. And it’s easy to see why.

Farage has been reduced to scraping the barrel with his guests (pace Christoper Biggins and Ann Widdecombe). He keeps on whining about migrants, when he isn’t whining about Joe Biden. No-one in the UK cares what Farage thinks about Biden. So when he brings on right-wingers from the USA - like Candace Owens and Sean Spicer - viewers turn off.

Viewers are starting to say that, too

So it is that free sheet Metro has told readersNigel Farage’s GB News show loses over half its viewers in just two weeks … The highest number of viewers tuning into Farage’s self-titled show last week was around 43,900, for the Monday evening edition. But compared to the week of August 9 (the last week available), it shows a huge decline in figures with the highest on a Wednesday night, with 137,300 watching according to official BARB ratings”. Now, he’s doing no better than the deeply unpleasant Dan Wootton.

Mr Thirsty was not even top dog of the GB News kennel: “He was knocked off the top spot by The Political Correction show on Sunday night, which saw the highest audience of the week, at 63,700 tuning in”. It’s worse on social media, as the Tweeter known as Joe Public pointed out: “GB News are not doing well online either, they average about 5k views per a video on their YouTube channel even though they claim to be a ‘digital media business that has a TV channel attached’ - Press Gazette, 21st July 2021”.


GB News needs an average audience not unadjacent to 150,000. It needs to have advertisers on board. It needs a six-figure number of subscribers, those who are prepared to pay a little for extra content. Right now, the audience isn’t getting above a third of that required, the big advertisers have left, and the number of paying subscribers is zero.

For now, its backers will keep on putting up the money. But for how much longer?


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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Isp Elle oakshitt alternative babestation hahahaha … pay per not view

Anonymous said...

'Twould take a heart of stone not to fall off your chair laughing hysterically, kick your heels in the air, get up, stick two fingers up, and chortle, "Fuck YOU, racist nazis. Blow it out your collective arse. Redundancy looms."

What joy!

Mr Larrington said...

So when the Gammonati insist that “we’re just saying what everyone is thinking” it turns out to be for a very specific value of “everyone”. As in “not actually very many people at all”.

Deep joy.

Jonathan said...

The one person I want to see with egg on their face is Neil Oliver, once respected archaeologist, now parading himself as a virologist and a soothsayer. A smug little bastard who needs pulling down completely.

iMatt said...

Isobell "Necessary" Oakshot. A "journalist" who came to fame on the back of the claim that Dave Cameron put his ding-a-ling in a dead pig's head. This is forever going to be the height of her journalistic career.

Candice Owens. A self-loathing useful idiot who does the bidding of those who would otherwise not give her the time of day. And Sean Spicer. A lying mouthpiece of a compulsive liar. Spicer cannot even get regular paid work due to his willingness to tell a pack of lies on behalf of Trump.

If this is the calibre of guest GBN can muster, it does not deserve to survive.

Mr Larrington said...

And now Brillo has folded his tent and stolen away, the giant ham.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/sep/13/andrew-neil-resigns-as-lead-presenter-and-chairman-of-gb-news