GBNews will be in HD on Freesat Channel No 216

McGaggs wrote: »

The name makes me think it'll be some sort of little Englander ukip, fox news style, propaganda channel. I'm willing to be proved wrong, but not willing to Google it in case I'm right and istart getting targeted ads based on it.

I don’t expect it to resemble Fox News too much in terms of outlook- the U.K. regulatory authorities (Ofcom) will come down on it like a ton of bricks if it’s too overtly one-sided. Fox News itself is gone from the U.K. (and Ireland) because it kept getting fined for breaches of U.K. regulatory codes. Broadcast news in the U.K. is required to be impartial (no such requirement exists in the US) and although GB News seems that it will be more talking heads than actual news reports, they’ll still need to have their eye on the clock.

Where it will likely resemble Fox News (and most US news channels) is the fact that this is likely to have more talking heads programmes than actual news. I think this in itself might be an undoing. The British public isn’t used to personality driven news programmes in that way (Piers Morgan on GMB maybe an exception, but one which didn’t end well). Sky News tried it in 2005 and ran a mile from it after a few months. They’ve also had other examples like Richard Littlejohn’s programmes in the past which weren’t well received. Just don’t expect the U.K. version of Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly is what I’m saying.