The Murdoch mafiosi had decided not to get into the UK launch of right-leaning so-called “News” channels. News UK CEO Rebekah Brooks had made the company’s view clear - it wasn’t a financially viable proposition in the UK, unlike in the US where Fox News Channel (fair and balanced
my arse) receives significant income merely by being made available as part of the average cable news package. But now, they’ve had second thoughts.
GB Whose? It's dead, Mate
Or rather, they’ve decided to do their version of a right-wing shock propaganda channel differently. Unlike Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“
Bacon’s News Channel”), which has to bear 100% of its own costs, what is being launched soon as TalkTV does not. Murdoch is no stranger to cross-subsidisation: he did that in the early days of Sky, using the then very profitable
Sun and
Screws to partly bale out his new satellite operation.
And that is how TalkTV can afford the unfeasibly overinflated on-air ego that is former
Screws and
Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan, who had told anyone who would listen that he had been “
cancelled” by ITV earlier this year. He was, not for the first time, talking in a highly creative manner: his definition of “
cancelled” will give him a new show on TalkTV, Sky News Australia, Fox News, and columns in the
Sun and
New York Post.
And what's more, Ron
This is how News UK
announced The Return Of The Moron™, beneath the obligatory snap of Don Rupioni alongside his new hire: “
New global TV show will air on weeknights in the UK, USA and Australia [FNC and maybe Sky Oz will pay for that] … Morgan will publish two weekly columns online for the New York Post and The Sun [like he does now for MailOnline] … HarperCollins to publish follow up to Sunday Times No1 bestseller, Wake Up [he has to spread himself rather thinly in order to get his paycheque]”.
How does it get broadcast in the UK without all that studio gubbins that GB News had to set up?
Simples. TalkRADIO already broadcasts video from existing studios in the Baby Shard Bunker. Also, TalkTV will be available as a streaming service. Almost all of the cost will be borne by existing Murdoch assets. And there may be other advantages.
Like the arrival of this new “
global TV show”, let’s call it
The All New Percy Moron Show™, tempting other media people to come on board, which in turn would enhance the profile of TalkRADIO, maybe even replacing no-marks like dribbling bigot Mike Graham, and the appalling self-promotion verbal diarrhoea-fest that is Julia Hartley Dooda.
Ominously, Ms Brooks
has confirmed the Murdoch modus operandi: “
Taking advantage of modern technology, we can produce high quality shows at low cost”. The studios are already in place. So is the technical backup. There will be none of the farce that dogged the launch of GB News. So where does the latter broadcaster go now?
The short answer is that it doesn’t. Like the clash between Sky and BSB, and the price war between the
Times and
Independent, this is a battle Rupert Murdoch intends to win. GB News is already suffering from a shortage of advertising and Very Few Viewers. TalkTV is its Nemesis. It may make it to the end of the year, but next year it will be stone dead.
GB News has reacted to the news by welcoming TalkTV and claiming “
We welcome competition. Bring it on!” But what Rupert Murdoch means by competition is where he gets to bury it. Don Rupioni needs to prove he is still strong.
That means crushing GB News.
AUKUS-DORKASS would be an appropriate name for the new TV Channel.
ReplyDeleteI think (I'm sure someone with more knowledge might correct me) one big difference is that in the US the cable networks pay Fcuks News to be able to carry it so they get paid even if few watch it... in the UK TV stations have to pay to be broadcast (although sometimes they get paid if they are a bundle of content such as say Virgin broadcasting SKY channels; but those are usually mutual deals of "you show mine I'll show yours" unless they fall out).
ReplyDeleteMurdercock will have to make it make money, or it'll be spaffing the best part of a hundred million a year up the wall. Although if its subsidised by Fcuks News US it might be worth it just for the soft power it would have against tories not following Murdercocks commands.
Damn it. I really should read the whole article before posting a response. It makes all the same points I did. My bad!
ReplyDeleteOnce a Murdoch butt-plug, always a Murdoch butt-plug...
ReplyDeleteTalkTV and GBN. Fighting like a couple of diseased rats in a sack.
ReplyDeleteGB News made the mistake of assuming that because a lot of people had agreed with Nigel Farage about Brexit, then a lot of people agreed with him about everything else, too. Whether as an electoral bloc or as a commercial market, that constituency does not exist. That is now clear beyond doubt, both from this year's election results, and from the distinct possibility that some GB News programmes might have had no viewers whatever. But those crowing about the demise of GB News, which of the others is any better? Which of them gives a platform to proponents of economic equality and of international peace?
ReplyDeleteNews UK's talkTV is happening after all, and it has signed up Piers Morgan. The usual suspects are reacting as they do. But why do people shriek the word "Murdoch" as if any of the others were any better? And Morgan has never been forgiven for having been right about the Iraq War, as extremely few mainstream journalists were. That is what the singular animosity towards him is about. Morgan is peculiarly objectionable compared to whom, exactly? His gig on Good Morning Britain has been given to Alastair Campbell, who is a war criminal.
To 20:05.
ReplyDeleteNothing to do with Moron's attitude to the Iraq war mass murder. A million people demonstrated against that crime.
Everything to do with the fact that he is and always was a Murdochite empty headed shouty tory gobshite and utter fraud. He'd sell his fat arse for a piece of money. He just proved it - yet again.