GB News Channel

TV News and Current Affairs Subscription, Streaming and International News
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Oh Christ… where do I start?

GB News CEO Angelos Frangopoulos: ‘The figures prove that the gutless politically motivated campaigns against GB News have failed’

This sounds like something a Scientologist would say. Don’t just take your successes with grace, but knock everyone else at the same time. Very very unbecoming. Also you can’t whine about campaigns against your channel being ‘politically motivated’ when said channel (a so-called ‘news channel’, I might add!) is basically one big long advert for Reform UK!

Official BARB ratings for August reveal how the People’s Channel massively increased its gap over the BBC News Channel - while Sky News is now a distant third.

WTF is this ‘People’s Channel’ bullshit? Sounds like North Korea.

In August they show how, between 6am and 2am, GB News saw average views rise by 6 per cent from 80.15k to 85.09k (1.53 per cent share).

In contrast, the BBC News Channel saw average views plummet by 13 per cent from 79.33k to 68.88k (1.23 per cent share).

Sky News’ average views also sank, dropping by 0.5% from 67.39k to 67.08k in August (1.2 per cent share).

Okay so these are average views from across the day. Some important caveats:

From 6-9am, 1-2pm, 6-6.30 and 10-11pm, the BBC News channel simulcasts news shows from BBC1 and 2, often with sign language. So during those times, GB News does do best out of the three dedicated news channels, but there are many more watching the same output on BBC1 or 2. So it’s not necessarily a fair comparison.

And Sky News’ average views didn’t ‘sink’ - they fell by a negligible number during a month where we had multiple heatwaves. This also explains why BBC News’ ratings fell somewhat during August. I don’t know why GB’s figures rose but I suspect Nigel Farage’s rabble-rousing about the migrant hotel protests had a lot to do with it. Again it’s down to average views - I believe Farage’s show does pretty well but most of the other shows have middling-to-poor ratings. In radio, this is sometimes referred to as the ‘penis-on-the-page’ effect.

Of course it doesn’t help that Sky News and the BBC News channel are both so fucking dull. If they were more engaging I daresay ratings would be higher and we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Ugly graphics, crap presenters, boring content… they almost deserve to be beaten by GB. As these figures clearly show, not that many people watch news channels full stop, which I think explains a lot. GB’s audience is fairly small but very dedicated, which I think skews these average figures we’re discussing today. Be interesting to see how a similar left-wing channel would do…

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Sky News takes all its marquee programmes off the air during summer and just does rolling news.

Also none of these channels make money, so end of day it’s pretty useless of Angelos to crow about anything. Sky News is backed by Sky and Comcast and is part of a wider company of interests, GB is a loss making business backed by overseas interests that could pull out anytime.

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Gee if GB News really is as claimed, the ‘No.1 News Channel in the UK’ then the Brits must be a miserable bunch, putting up with Farage whining daily about nothingness and sucking up to Trump.

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Hit the nail on the head. GB News is not great, but BBC and Sky are just so badly produced. When you go to France, LATAM and US news channels are lively. They are in the ratings business. GB still looks ametearish no doubt, but it is lively and dynamic (mostly)

There is some hypey OTT language in GB’s presser - both bottom line is they are on a role. Their channel seems to be hanging onto the No. 1 spot for now - their news app is No. 5 in the UK.

They have tapped intto something in the UK…

Also in UK - Sky and non terrestial viewership is pretty low. BBC and ITV just dominate. It’s a really traditional TV market here.

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Don’t underestimate the shift happening now in UK. I live here, I actually live .5km from one of the migrant hotels in Canary Wharf. People turned on the tories. Then vpted labor. Now even labor voters feel betrayed - they somehow have fucked the country more than the awful tories.

If an electipn happened now - Reform would win.

When the major parties lose the trust and understanding of the public (democrats, Labour, Tories) people vote for something different.

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The total audience for news channels in the UK seems to be less than 250k - so I guess it’s a case of three bald men fighting over a comb! But yes GB does seem to do well online. Doesn’t hurt that their website is a carbon copy of the Daily Express (a right wing newspaper in the UK) - full of clickbait and Reform-bait.

Linear TV in general (at least in the UK) seems to be mostly for old people now. On the occasions I’ve seen daytime TV recently the ad breaks have been FULL of funeral plans, diet plans and insurance plans. And it’s the same few ads over and over… which probably tells you something.

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All non broadcast channels in UK have very low audiences

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I’ve not noticed that.

Ads seem the normal brands you would expect to me. And I’ve never seen the same ads over and over.

What Chanel’s are you watching to see that?

That said in under 30s it goes

YouTube
TikTok
Netflix (distant 3rd)

In terms of viewing time for under 30s in UK

I think BBC is 4th

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No. 5

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ITV1 (whilst visiting relatives). This is during the day, I might add. In prime time it’s a lot less repetitive (as you’d expect).

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Nigel Farage appearing at a US Congress inquiry looking like a smug prick as per usual, check out the pin…

Screenshot_20250908_120609_Instagram
Screenshot_20250908_120609_Instagram1080×2340 135 KB

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wow shocking, who saw that coming

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GB News grew its audience for the 3rd straight month in a row to its highest audience share ever to become the #1 news channel in UK for the 3rd month in a row

All viewers up 4% month on month

Prime time up 10% month on month

Sky now number 3

https://www.gbnews.com/news/gb-news-britains-number-one-news-channel-three-months-in-a-row

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5 months in a row as # 1

Audience up 25%

GB averaging 100k, Sky 80k and BBC 64k

https://www.gbnews.com/news/gb-news-november-viewing-figures-latest-barb-data

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Really doesn’t matter, it loses tonnes of money, can’t keep talent because they keep going nuts, and having a slightly higher average linear audience than two channels that just air headlines is hardly worth crowing about.

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Exactly, it’s like how Scientology counts everyone who has ever set foot in one of their ‘churches’ as a member. Also calling it ‘The People’s Channel’ is some proper North Korean shit.

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“The People’s Channel” needs “The People’s Elbow”. :rofl:

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The fact that a scrappy cheap upstart with low budgets, crappy sets and minimal resources has managed to become the #1 most watched news channel in the UK in 3 years is quite something. BBC and Sky have decades on GB, and significantly more resouces and staff and experiences.

They’ve come from 6000 average viewers to 100,000 viewers in 3 years.

As someone who lives in the UK, who sees the state of this country - and who equally hates the Toris and Labour - GB has landed onto success because it is the anti BBC. It’s very telling of the mood in this country - with Farage on tracl to be PM with labor going from an absolute landslide majorirty a year ago to being pushed aside by a marginal party like Reform in 12 months. Tells you how unhappy Brits are with the state of the country (and like the US its the economy and immigration driving it)

GB is part of this wave. People are fed up with the status quo.

BBC and Sky are free to evolve their formats. I’m surprised they are not doing more to react. Less BBC, which will just BBC. But more Sky. I’m surprised they are not evolving more. Their coverage of labour is leaning somehwat right as they are very very critical of labor - but they still have a very boring, dull approach to programming.

Sky will be fighting for survival in the next few years as mandated funding by Comcast falls away