GB News - successful start?

[MBE2017]

I see GB News seem happy with their first ten weeks of broadcasting, they have apparently had 1 billion hits, beaten Sky News peak viewing figure five times already, and their average viewer spends more time watching than Sky News or the BBC News, with 80% of their viewers outside of London.

Personally I do not watch ANY news program, haven’t for over three years and find I do not miss it at all, but it appears their was a genuine demand for an alternative based on their figures. Anyone watched it and their Views?

 

[IanSuth]

I see GB News seem happy with their first ten weeks of broadcasting, they have apparently had 1 billion hits, beaten Sky News peak viewing figure five times already, and their average viewer spends more time watching than Sky News or the BBC News, with 80% of their viewers outside of London.

Personally I do not watch ANY news program, haven’t for over three years and find I do not miss it at all, but it appears their was a genuine demand for an alternative based on their figures. Anyone watched it and their Views?

I watched about 10 minutes and couldn't take the delivery style

From that short experience I have a feeling it has a loyal viewer base who sit and lap it up as it perpetuates their already fixed opinions. Iike the fact people listen to particular presenters on LBC because they know what views each of them is going to "promote" (i listen to LBC and try and have an open mind because i know it is stirring things on purpose to get a reaction/listeners)

 

[MBE2017]

I watched about 10 minutes and couldn't take the delivery style
.......I have a feeling it has a loyal viewer base who sit and lap it up as it perpetuates their already fixed opinions. Iike the fact people listen to particular presenters on LBC because they know what views each of them is going to "promote"

I think that applies to most stations, people seem to settle on one and stick with it. I had to really stop myself laughing too hard when a friend of my wife’s, an educated women in a good job, revealed she only listened to the BBC since only they can be trusted to broadcast the truth.

If it’s on the BEEB, she believes it completely.

 

[MikeJ]

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1486277/gb-news-ratings-latest-numbers-andrew-neil-quit-evg

 

[Ozzy]

I watched about 10 minutes and couldn't take the delivery style

That’s the same issue I have with it, tried but found it more akin to a reality TV show. Again, same with LBC too. I tend to find reading a bunch of different newspapers better personally, but the problem with any news medium is they all have their own narrative and leaning.

 

[Free Stuff For Startups]

I flick around all the international news services in order to get some sort of perspective and I've included GB news in my more recent surfing. I found it painfully amateurish to watch.lets face it, its no Al Jazeera. I'm guessing these viewing figures are made up largely of the curious and subsequently disappointed.

 

[Deleted member 335660]

Early days, and I expect a lot of hits are curiosities especially with all the Internal squabbles they have been having.

 

[The Byre]

GB News is ultimately owned by The Discovery Channel and they take a very long view of doing business. They are a huge company with revenues well in excess of $10bn, making them almost twice the size of the BBC. They are also fiercely efficient and very profitable, with gross profits over $2.5bn.

The structure of GB News reminds me of The National, a pro-independence Scottish newspaper. Like GB News, it seems at first glance to be a minnow swimming in a sea of sharks, whereas in reality, it is part of the very large Gannett publishing empire. Both media adventures are opinionated, both are really low-budget, both are probably very long-term projects that have to prove their worth by growing organically.

One must think of the media landscape like the Tennessee Land Rush of 1893. Staking a claim on the land, or in this case, on channels is the easy part. Planting crops was the hard part! It costs a few million to rent transmitter space and pay for play-out facilities and line fees. Making programmes that hold viewers' attention is the hard part! Many seeds must fall on stony ground.

Most new media outlets are poor and amateurish when they start. I was witness to and worked for RTL Television in 1984 when it was a few guys in a converted garage in Luxembourg broadcasting over the border to the German town of Trier. To say the programmes were dire is to grossly understate the blindingly obvious. During the daytime, the DJs from Radio Luxembourg introduced music videos and at night, their most popular programme was a game show called Tutti-Frutti, in which contestants had to answer general knowledge questions. If they got an answer wrong, they had to take off an item of clothing. The highlight of the programme was when a bank clerk and a shop assistant had to dance naked because they didn't know the capital of Ireland.

The station was the brainchild of a media salesman called Helmut Thoma who managed to get Bertelsmann to invest DM20m (just £8m) to get the whole thing off the ground. The station grew exponentially and within five years it got a national license and gained a 10% share of the German TV audience. By the mid-90s it was over 20% in some months and Thoma had managed to have all the top shows like Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Formular-1 and all the top home-grown comedies. It was Europe's largest private TV station.

Those were heady days and I fondly remember extravagant champagne and sushi parties being held at the slightest excuse! A new post-production suit? Party! A new switching centre? Party! A new OB truck? Outdoor party! It seemed that as much as Bertelsmann management disliked Helmut Thoma, he had given them a license to print money and he was going to enjoy his role as a media star as long as the sun was shining!

And I was reminded of my days at Granada TV back in the days of black-n-white TV. Everyone was flying by the seat of their pants - wobbly cardboard sets and Kenny Everett and a young Germaine Greer with a fro and hotpants asking such searching questions as 'Why do men have nipples?'

And yes, lots of parties!

So these are still very early days for GB News. The unclaimed land for UK-based news channels is wide open and the competition is financially weakened and poorly structured. And now the Andrew Neil has had a hissy-fit, we are spared the sight of him dancing naked - and he knows where Dublin is anyway!

 

[japancool]

Mmm. Doesn't Ofcom require news to be reported impartially and to be fair and balanced?

 

[MikeJ]

Andrew Neil has left the sinking ship...

 

[The Byre]

The ship is not sinking. Given the platform it has given Farage and the awful quality of the programming, I wish it would - but I understand the media business and that is just the toe in the water by one of the world's largest and most profitable media companies.

It's like saying Lincs-FM is a failure because it only has a handful of listeners as it only broadcasts to Lincoln, Scunthorpe and Grantham. But as a part of the giant Bauer Media group, it ain't going away any time soon! Well, GB-News is owned by a company that is double that size and double the size of the BBC and a company with an EBITDA of 25%.

Right now, there are just two UK news channels and that means that there is space for more.

And because it belongs to the Discovery group, it can pool network advertising in the same way that magazine publishers sell advertising across a range of titles.

 

[MikeJ]

Glug.

 

[Ian J]

I watched about 10 minutes and couldn't take the delivery style

From that short experience I have a feeling it has a loyal viewer base who sit and lap it up as it perpetuates their already fixed opinions.

If I've got this correctly you don't like it and anyone that does is an idiot

 

[Ian J]

Anyone watched it and their Views?

I watched it a little in the early days and didn't really like their style which is a shame as I really wanted to like it. I might have another try in a few weeks to see if it has changed

 

[IanSuth]

If I've got this correctly you don't like it and anyone that does is an idiot

Not at all - the same way I wouldn't call anyone who read the Telegraph, Guardian, Daily Star or Express an idiot - I was saying like those newspapers it has very blatant and in many ways unashamedly biased views on certain subjects. I would watch it as an antidote to other news if I could stand the delivery but I suspect a lot of it's viewership will be people who avidly watch just it as it affirms their world view. Advertisers like that - having a fixed viewer pool that are easy to categorise is the ad mans delight

 

[alan1302]

It's like saying Lincs-FM is a failure because it only has a handful of listeners as it only broadcasts to Lincoln, Scunthorpe and Grantham.

It's nothing like saying that in the slightest - Lincs-FM is doing what it sets out to do.