New Alternative News Channel "GB News" chaired by Andrew Neil launching - read OP before posting

Quin_Dub

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117652154#Comment_117652154

Just to remind you again , in case you missed it.

GB News is a Broadcast TV News Station not a YouTube Channel.

Getting people to watch a 2 or 3 minute clip on YouTube is a million miles away from getting them to watch several hours of programming on TV.

Whilst I'm sure the arrival of Farage will provide a short lived dead-cat bounce in the Broadcast viewing numbers for a while from sight-seers having a quick look , the overall trend will remain where it is , flat-lined approaching death.

Now I will add that launching a TV channel in the Summer , during the Euros followed by really warm weather probably isn't helping anybodies ratings right now , but GB news are still dragging along the bottom of an already smaller volume.

ancapailldorcha

To add to that, I follow a few Youtube channels and, when they're clearly not low effort creators, they're constantly trying to drum up subscribers on platforms like Youtube memberships and Patreon and that's for the one person (+ editors for the wealthier creators) operations. A whole news channel on the other hand...

ohnonotgmail

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117652123#Comment_117652123

their online figures are meaningless. They are a TV station not a YT channel.

Mic 1972

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117640598#Comment_117640598

Liberals judge people by their action? i dont think so

Liberals judge people by their identity

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117653448#Comment_117653448

No, you cannot separate the two.

Social media views/shares show that there is interest in the output by the channel itself.

Channels deploy social media to extend reach and seed interest; a tool of the channel. This isn't 1999 where only TV viewers count.

Any station worth their salt will try to accumulate a massive social media following / engagement / share count. Only a complete fool would ignore the power that social media can yield for any kind of station.

It's the equivalent of someone arguing, when setting up a business website, that social media isn't important because all that matters is how many people find the website through Google Search.

It's such an outdated, ignorant, and naïve attitude.

Mic 1972

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117640910#Comment_117640910

I agree, he nailed the style and attitude. Starting a new channel with non-mainstream views was always going to be challenging. It will continue to grow from now on

Tell me how

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117653459#Comment_117653459

Is this some sort of 'Fridge Magnet phrase' you saw on Brietbart or in a Candace Owens retweet?

ohnonotgmail

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117653463#Comment_117653463

if those online viewers don't translate into tv viewers then they are meaningless. we have seen nothing so far to suggest they have. You cant support a tv station on YT ad money.

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117653471#Comment_117653471

I might be a creature that leans right, but I find the likes of Candace Owens and Laurence Fox opportunistic and utterly ghastly.

Not one original thought could be created by merging their two frontal lobes.

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117653481#Comment_117653481

Fox was literally one of the first people they put on the air so it's not saying much about the channel...

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117653490#Comment_117653490

He was all over mainstream channels for quite a considerable time.

I don't care where he's found. He's awful.

ohnonotgmail

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117653490#Comment_117653490

and he was mooned by somebody asking a question.

Joe_ Public

Again, Farage "being all over GB News" isn't quite the endorsement people think. It just hints at over exposure, one guy covering up the cracks appearing elsewhere. Not something i would be getting carried away with anyway, in terms of the overall station and its viability.

Gentlemanne

It's actually amazing to me how much you love Farage if you (correctly) think Candace Owens is an opportunistic ghoul

mcmoustache

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117653817#Comment_117653817

Her's is a lot more blatant, to be fair. Farage, as dislikable as he is, at least has the ability to seem pretty normal to people of a little-English mindset, many of whom are educated and run about in the middle classes. Owens, on the other hand, relies on the the dumbest people around and in the US there's no shortage of them. Her grift is more like a Nigerian prince scam while Farage's is more like a Credit Default Swap. The difference is in the class of people being targeted. You can see it here too. The main Farage fan here can spell and knows what a thesaurus is while Owens's marks would think it was a creature in Jurassic park. There's definitely a difference and it's perfectly reasonable that those who fall for Farage would look down on someone who's grift is more obvious that the one that they are falling for.

MisterAnarchy

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117653490#Comment_117653490

Fox's new jacket is smashing

extra gravy

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117654329#Comment_117654329

It's not new, he just keeps reposting it for attention like the pathetic loser he is.

Rjd2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117653989#Comment_117653989

Farage at least has always been consistent with his views. He may have got more right wing over time, but it doesn't feel a grift with him.

Owens its clearly a grift, she started off as a hardcore "SJW" and would have stuck with that but decided to go where the money is.

She is clever at what she does sadly though, very sharp on social media and knows her base are mainly old white boomers who love the usual memes "the Dems are the party of slavery " etc.

Rjd2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117654432#Comment_117654432

some of the pronoun stuff can be silly, but who cares really as its so utterly unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

He is 43 ffs.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117653989#Comment_117653989

I'm very much against this "intellectual right"-kind of phenomenon that has swept the Internet in recent years.

Whether it's Candace Owens, Dave Rubin, Steven Crowder, or Jordan B. Peterson etc. (and the rest, you know who they are) - I honestly don't find any original value in anything they say.

It's intellectual commercialization and an appeal to simple thinking.

Many of these people trot out the same lines, such as "...we just want to have an honest conversation in the marketplace of ideas". In reality, it's about simple-minded generalizations that offers no significant depth whatsoever.

Even Jordan B. Peterson. Apart from suggesting that adults should be responsible and that we shouldn't be compelled by law to ventilate other's designated personal pronouns, what exactly does he offer? Those previous two ideas are hardly revolutionary. His musings on the religion/God question is nothing more than an incoherent verbal seizure.

Candace Owens, too, cashing in. Katie Hopkins and Milo Yiannopoulos are extreme versions of this, of course, donning an act to create right-wing controversy for the sake of it, to generate publicity, and the media appearances and dollar signs that come flowing with it. Thankfully, both of those individuals have (pretty much) been consigned to the dustbin. Milo Yiannopoulos, in an attempt to remain relevant, even "came out as straight". What an attention-seeking, status yearning loser. That attempt failed, too, by the way.

I don't see Nigel Farage as part of the above, though. Whilst you may consider him a "grifter", Farage has been consistent over the past 30-years about his desired political aim. You may disagree with the means through which he has achieved this, but he is nonetheless consistent. To confer legitimacy upon anyone, they must be consistent - and Farage at least boasts that metric in large volumes. The same cannot be said for the intellectual dark web-types - who, upon having some viral videos, decided to act up and cash in. They have no moral scruples or offer any honest intellectual value. They say what needs to be said to generate views, ad revenue, and tours.

Nothing more.

Empty vessels with not an original thought among them.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117652081#Comment_117652081

In fact, they've gained a further 3,000 subscribers over the past 18-hours.

Pretty consistent, even trending upward growth.

At this rate, they'll hit the 200,000 mark in just 8-days from now.

5-days ago they even advertised for many new positions. So much for a channel in terminal decline.

https://twitter.com/GBNEWS/status/1417090837192794114

Mic 1972

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117653471#Comment_117653471

What side of the political spectrum would you place identity politics? as in LGBT, BLM and the likes

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117654840#Comment_117654840

Tbf though surely you can see farage doesn't actually hold any political views. He is probably the original grand master grifter. He got onto EU gig not to make any political change just to get money and expenses this can be clearly demonstrated by his voting practices and is fleeting appearances preferring to spend his European time frequenting bars with other like minded grifters. Your admiration should be just because he's doing it longer. You should get him to do a cameo video for you.

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117654901#Comment_117654901

Genuinely you've no clue how YouTube works.

And secondly how many people have up and left sticks of a sinking ship. More can actually mean replacement.

pjohnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117654901#Comment_117654901

So you think the TV Channel is successful because of Youtube figures.

Do you not see how bonkers that "logic" is?

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117654901#Comment_117654901

Again, Youtube subscribers/views do not translate equally over to viewers of their actual channel, and while the new schedule and addition of Farage will see a bump in their ratings for a week or two, unless they start substantially and consistently increasing viewer numbers to their actual channel, it's not going to be sustainable.

Why you keep focusing on their YouTube numbers is beyond me. It means incredibly little in the long run as to the viability of GB News as a whole. And even then, the numbers of new subscribers really isn't that huge either. Even taking the numbers you posted of 2000 in 24 hours, thats 1million new subscribers in 500 days. Almost a year and a half if it continued at that rate. That's pretty abysmal tbh for a nationwide "news" channel with already-established personalities such as Neil and Farage.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117654999#Comment_117654999

Folks here give the impression that 350 people watch the channel per week, all of whom are over the age of 70.

In its first month, GB News attracted almost 4 million viewers (as reported by BARB) - with a third of those viewers being under the age of 30 years.

Far too much hyperbole here about how they are "failing to attract viewers".

noelfirl

https://twitter.com/RTCoxwell/status/1418574969987076097

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117655079#Comment_117655079

You cannot selectively quote a time of day and generalize about the progress of the channel.

Better to take a holistic approach over the past month's performance.

According to BARB (the Broadcasters Audience Research Board is an organisation that compiles audience measurement and television ratings in the UK):

• 3.7 million tuned into GB News over the first month - compared to 4.6m for Sky Sports, 8.4m for Sky News, and 12.6m for BBC News.
• In the first 5-weeks, GB News' YouTube channel saw 9.9 million views and 601,000 hours worth of content viewed with 138.4 million impressions.
• GB News recorded 39.6 million views on Twitter; 240.7 million Tweet impressions (7.8 million each day, on average).
• On Facebook, GB News had 8.6 million video views with a reach of 9.4 million and 4.3 million engagements.
• Third of GB News viewers are under the age of 35 years. 29pc between 35 and 54 years; and 39% over the age of 55 years.

This idea that GB News is only holding a handful of views each day is beyond parody at this stage.

That seems very bright indeed for a first month's performance. Yes, it could be higher - and perhaps GB News had greater ambitions, but what they have secured is quite substantial.

These are the facts as provided by BARB - not biased personal commentary or misrepresentations from dishonest tabloid publications.

noelfirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117655125#Comment_117655125

Who said it was a generalisation? It was a quote, noting that Farage, so called saviour ("watch out BBC!", said one particular tabloid), lost 30% of his audience in 3 days.

Sorry you don't like that.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117655141#Comment_117655141

What an absurd conclusion.

Did you seriously believe his first night was going to start from the lowest viewing figure, and then rise upward in the days thereafter?

Christ...

noelfirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117655148#Comment_117655148

Ah, Farage going down is a good thing. Got it.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117655155#Comment_117655155

You have clearly never studied the rules of logic.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117655044#Comment_117655044

You can't complain about hyperbole right after saying "Folks here give the impression that 350 people watch the channel per week, all of whom are over the age of 70." - That's pure hyperbole.

New channel attracts viewers in their first month. Of course they did. There is a definite audience for what they do, an audience of all ages.

The question is, is that audience enough to sustain them? Will that audience grow enough to sustain them? There was a huge build-up before launch, and in their first month the actual views to most of the programming has been dropping, and in some cases has been statistically zero.

Sky News, BBC etc are beating it in the ratings, but even then they are small parts of larger networks and can be sustained by them. GB News isn't. They need far greater numbers to stay sustainable. Again, they'll see a bump after taking on Farage and changing the schedule, but the majority of people who want to watch GB News are likely already watching GB News. If people are watching their content on twitter, youtube etc, that's actually pretty damaging, because they need those people watching on the channel instead as they'll make most of their money with ad views.

Their viewer numbers need to substantially increase in the next few months for the channel to be viable. Their views in their second and third months will tell a far more important story than their first (when their launch will obviously have gotten them more attention and people checking them out).

noelfirl

To rephrase slightly:

Farage failing to hold and sustain the initial high level audience he achieved on day 1 of his show is OK.

By the way, as you're so firmly on top of the data - your long post above, can you point us to the primary data source(s)? I wasn't aware that BARB collected any data on youtube views, tweets or facebook.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117654744#Comment_117654744

Farage the former City of London banker who rails against the City of London elites.

Farage who wants the EU immigrants out except his EU wife

Farage who repeatedly said the UK could have a deal like Norway then called anyone who suggested it a traitor post Brexit

Farage who promised multiple Brexit votes if he lost and called anyone who suggested it after he won a traitor.

Mr consistent

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117654840#Comment_117654840

Farage is one of them though whether you are too blinded by hero worship to see it or not

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117655267#Comment_117655267

Very inaccurate.

Farage isn't against the City of London, but is against global corporatism and the unfair advantage it yields.

Farage has never said he wants "EU migrants out". Rather, he has stated that the UK should control immigration numbers and the quantity/quality of people who arrive throughout the world, and not to have an open door - without any checks - to southern and eastern Europe. Is he only permitted to have an English wife? Some of the stuff I see on this thread is laughable.

Farage didn't say that he desired a Norway-type deal. He emphasized a bespoke UK-deal, which may have similarities with Norway. The point he was emphasizing was that Norway yielded more autonomy over certain aspects of their economy / bureaucracy.

Farage said that, if he were to lose the referendum, it wouldn't be the end of the matter. Yet the same people arguing against Farage are the same ones who kept banging on about having another referendum to reverse the results of the 2016 plebiscite.

Your facts are distorted and, in many cases, outright falsities.

MisterAnarchy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117652155#Comment_117652155

You again with your statement that the company would be closed before the end of the year.

You failed to put your money where your mouth is along with all the others who were offered the same bet.

GBNews has taken the place of Trump living rent free in yere heads.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117655318#Comment_117655318

He has repeatedly said the UK will get a Norway + deal which would mean being in the EEA

He repeatedly bangs on about the London elite and vested interest and all this nonsense despite him being up to his eyes in it. Lives in Chelsea and schooled in the ultra elite Dulwich college.

And yes he threatened to keep campaigning for Brexit if it lost which in his words would have been against the will of the people.

I'm pretty sure no one on here believes you anyway when you talk about falsities. And the fact you point out that its "southern and eastern" Europeans are the problem only reinforces for me that Brexit was about racism for many. The idea of good and bad immigrants that I heard so much of in London when told it's ok that I could steal the jobs but Italians and Polish were not welcome

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117655346#Comment_117655346

I really think you're overestimating how much time it's in our heads.... It's a channel which has a small viewer base and no influence.

Timberrrrrrrr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117655346#Comment_117655346

For me GB "news" is akin to reruns of friends or top gear, sometimes I'll be flicking through the channels and see it's there and think to myself "ah sure this is always good for a few giggles"

Nothing more nothing less.

Dave0301

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117655125#Comment_117655125

Since you are so keen to champion the interactions for GB News on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, can you do the same for BBC News, Sky etc. so that it is a fair comparison?

How many impressions did some of these news outlets have in the same 5 week period? Otherwise, 39.6 million views on Twitter is fairly meaningless without a similar comparison.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117655564#Comment_117655564

I gave the BARB TV viewer comparison ratings over the same period:

• 3.7 million tuned into GB News over the first month - compared to 4.6m for Sky Sports, 8.4m for Sky News, and 12.6m for BBC News.

Carfacemandog

You have to laugh at GB News viewers and their love of cancel culture, with presenter Guto Harri being fired and silenced for daring to take a knee in support of England's players receiving tonnes of racial abuse after the Euro's final.

https://bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-57885955

Broadcaster Guto Harri has quit GB News after he was suspended for taking the knee during a discussion about racism towards England's black footballers.

Harri confirmed his decision to leave the new channel to BBC Wales on Sunday.

Last week, GB News apologised after the TV journalist made the gesture, which it said breached its standards.

On Friday, incoming presenter and former Ukip leader Nigel Farage said he "will not be taking the knee for anyone" on his new show.

In his resignation letter, seen by the BBC, Harri asked the organisation to "please explain how that [Farage's stance] does not breach editorial standards but I did".

Dave0301

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117655578#Comment_117655578

That is not what I asked for. You are championing GB News based on social media interaction and views. Can you please provide the same numbers for other news outlets over the same period?

Otherwise the figures for YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are without comparison.

noelfirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117655578#Comment_117655578

Glad to see you have noticed that BARB has nothing to do with tweets, Youtube or Facebook video views. Perhaps next time before you decide to give a soapbox lecture on taking an holistic approach you can holistically review your own approach to collating and synthesising data summaries.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117655621#Comment_117655621

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117655643#Comment_117655643

The statistics above are representative of how GB News has performed both in terms of TV viewers and social media.

If you never watched GB News and read this thread, you'd probably believe that GB News secures 300-500 visitors a day.

When you review the stats above, including 4 million TV viewer reach in its FIRST 28-days, you begin to develop a very different impression indeed; one uncontaminated by bias, hysteria, hyperbole, or antagonistic tabloid misrepresentation.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117655621#Comment_117655621

According to Socialblade, Youtube video views over past 30 days:

GB News = 7.8m

Sky News = 34.78m

BBC News = 47.28m

New Twitter followers over past 30 days:

GB News = 16.7k

Sky News = 43.2k

BBC News = 100.5k

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117655666#Comment_117655666

And how many of those 4m stayed watching the channel? Some of their programmes are barely getting 1% of that.