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

The channel that promised us free speech and promised to battle 'cancel culture' is now after cancelling a presenter for exercising his free speech. You couldnt make it up.

"Guto Harri has been indefinitely taken off air as a presenter on the rightwing channel GB News, sources at the station have told the Guardian, after being “cancelled” by its viewers because he symbolically took the knee on screen.

The channel is currently in crisis, with other staff considering leaving amid management upheaval, collapsing ratings and plans for a relaunch.

GB News was unable to withstand the strong and sustained viewer backlash to Harri’s display of solidarity with the racist abuse suffered by the England football team. The channel, set up on the basis that free and open debate is no longer possible in the mainstream media due to an all-pervasive “cancel culture”, was overwhelmed with complaints that after just a few weeks on air it had gone “woke” and its content was not sufficiently rightwing"

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jul/16/gb-news-pulls-guto-harri-off-air-taking-the-knee-row

Seems as though some associated with the channel are genuinely committed to free speech, but the viewership don't want that. They don't want a balanced channel, they want a far right one.

So the troubling conclusion is that there's a market in the UK for a channel to the right of GB News.

"John McAndrew, the channel’s director of programming, has also quit the station, sources told the Guardian. McAndrew, a well-known figure in the television news industry who has a long track record at mainstream outlets including Sky News and Euronews, was considered to be the channel’s second-in-command and played a key role in convincing many of the more established mainstream presenters to join.

Sources suggested he had come under pressure to dial down the focus on local reporting and free debate in favour of full-blooded culture war topics, so chose to resign."

So.... things are going well....

I’m familiar with aspects of the media sector and my observation is that people are often willing to work for any broadcaster or print publication simply because the sector is so tough.

If GB News sounded reasonable, had opportunities to be high profile etc, I could absolutely see people opting to try it out.

My view of it is that the commercial news media is in a terminal, downward spiral and is bolted to a failing business model.

Consumers expect content (of any quality) for free and don’t appreciate how resource intensive news gathering really is.

The pay rates and conditions, other than at very high level, are generally awful. There’s often very poor security of employment and a long standing culture of freelancing and short contracts that tends to mean nobody has any expectations anyway.

The pattern is people go into journalism, realise how poor the pay and conditions are and rapidly drift off into other careers. You see that all the time.

The result of that is bad quality journalism and biased publications with agendas of opinion forming, not genuine news gathering.

In London (and elsewhere) there’s also a history of back to back internships and low pay, which has tended to mean that only people who can afford to live on unstable income can establish themselves. In London that means people who are local and don’t need to pay for housing, or who are from very wealthy backgrounds.

https://twitter.com/davechannel/status/1415948980756918272

I think Darren McCaffrey and Andrew Doyle are good.

They are to launch a radio version as well.

I prefer news to chat.

I prefer news to opinion pieces.

But the channel adds to choice.

Would be competing with three almost identical services in the UK - LBC, Talk Radio and Times Radio. The latter are run by the same company as each other and heavily co-dependent so not the same cost as running two independents.

TV is exceptionally dear but radio isn't particularly cheap either.

That's because it's propaganda and not news, and there's only so much propaganda you can peddle with a so called "anti woke" stance. There's simply not enough grist for the mill with that and it was always destined to be a failure of some description. The vast majority of people in Britain have never even heard the phrase "woke" (another silly Americanism) so already the channel is on the back foot. And with that being its de facto raison d'etre, the chances of crashing and burning were very high.

If they somehow manage to turn it all around, it'll be a minor miracle. But it will take some serious alterations in attitude and approach. Because, clearly, the crap they're trying ain't working.

If he's going to call them 'Sinn Fein IRA', then maybe people should refer to him as "Colin Brazier, who broke a Sky News colleague's nose and smashed several of his teeth during a row at a staff Christmas party". Or "Colin Brazier who rummaged through luggage belonging to the victims of an air tragedy, live on air". He's an arsehole, well-suited to GB News.

Where in that tweet does he say he has no intention of leaving? In fact, he has already left, where does he say he will be back?

No! I'm pointing out that he didn't say what you think he said, you're the one twisting his words to suit your agenda, in the meantime they are getting zero viewers and this seems.to upset you.