More info about GB News shows.

[Mr Banlon]

I see Jeremy Vine watched Scarface last night.

[idunnosomename]

Is there seriously an orangutan emoji

🦧

Hmm looks like a chimp to me

[Ambient Sheep]

Twitter rumour has it that Simon McCoy has quit.  No proper sources I can find yet.

[Ferris]

Like a news channel spinoff from Change: the Independent Group UK.

Doomed from the off, and only pure ego and shadowy outside money keeping the operation afloat until it becomes quietly removed from everyone's CV.

[Huxleys Babkins]

Twitter rumour has it that Simon McCoy has quit.  No proper sources I can find yet.

Saw earlier that Alastair Stewart is off after breaking his hip walking his horse out of its stable. Bet he's gutted.

[idunnosomename]

Bet the horse is too.

Oh it says walking

[Sebastian Cobb]

Twitter rumour has it that Simon McCoy has quit.  No proper sources I can find yet.

I always felt ambivalent about him joining, he seemed a harmless less-pernicious Richard Madeley type on BBC news so was quite surprised when he was off to join the shitheels. Not sure if I should have sympathy for anyone joining them but he did seem to realise from the off he'd made a terrible mistake.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Top exec has quit now:

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.

Article also touches on rumors of a relaunch.

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

[Alberon]

Most of the professionals will push off and the channel will go full on culture war in a bid to survive. It's not going to be pretty.

[Ambient Sheep]

Well Simon's still on it, having had a quick look, but since the Exec who, it appears, persuaded him to come aboard in the first place, has now quit, I wonder for how much longer?

[RenegadeScrew]

Standards of anti-racism and also concurrently anti-anti-racism.

Their hyprocrisy and blatant racism is obvious, but its a great quote from a bunch of lads who can't organise a news bulletin and (from the clips I've seen on twitter) look like a complete joke most of the time. 

In that sense, it is like McDonalds or Burger King talking about the integrity of their restaurant.

[Ambient Sheep]

Amusing:

https://twitter.com/Mysteron_Voice/status/1416013366183743488

[Ferris]

Would love them to go full loony culture wars, like that Noel Edmonds show from ~10 years back but 24/7 and with zero production values.

Descend into the madness, full on abyss, yes lads.

[touchingcloth]

Would love them to go full loony culture wars, like that Noel Edmonds show from ~10 years back but 24/7 and with zero production values.

Descend into the madness, full on abyss, yes lads.

They could start a great website like Noel's.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Would love them to go full loony culture wars, like that Noel Edmonds show from ~10 years back but 24/7 and with zero production values.

Descend into the madness, full on abyss, yes lads.

I only saw a clip from that on Brooker and still don't really trust that it was real.

[Psybro]

Nice seeing someone like Guto Harri forced to look directly at where all that filthy coin they collected came from.

[Tikwid]

Their hyprocrisy and blatant racism is obvious, but its a great quote from a bunch of lads who can't organise a news bulletin and (from the clips I've seen on twitter) look like a complete joke most of the time. 

In that sense, it is like McDonalds or Burger King talking about the integrity of their restaurant.

"Racism is entirely at odds with the values of the Carphone Warehouse"

[daf]

I didn't know Guto Harri was even on there!

I remember him from Welsh (language) TV decades ago - He was the Vatican correspondent for a while I think.

[steveh]

According to someone I know who works for another media company, they've gone way over budget and don't have the money to remedy the core technical issues and bring in new kit to fix the presentation problems, so people on that side don't want to stick around. The dropping of local reporting is partly because that's done by freelancers and they haven't been paid so many won't do further work. With several senior staff leaving, those who joined because of them are considering their options and there's no shortage of TV job vacancies currently.

All GB News can afford to do is strip it back to an LBC type guests and phone-in format but on proper TV. However, if they focus too much on the core hard right audience they won't get advertisers and run into regulatory compliance issues, while if they go for a more general audience they get zero ratings because the hard right won't watch and the general audience expects a better product. The company needs to raise new funds but it was a terrible launch and the existing business plan has now been proved not to work. Their only media investor, Discovery, is also now in the midst of a merger with WarnerMedia (who own CNN) and probably has no appetite now.

Also a rumour that Andrew Neil's disappearance is because senior management were asked to take salary cuts to help with the cashflow problem but he refused to do shows if he wasn't getting paid.

[MoreauVasz]

He was the Vatican correspondent for a while I think.

Vatican correspondent for S4C?! That's a job on the level of that bloke claiming to be head of covert intelligence for the Disney corporation.

[Ferris]

Also a rumour that Andrew Neil's disappearance is because senior management were asked to take salary cuts to help with the cashflow problem but he refused to do shows if he wasn't getting paid.

Solidarity forever, Andrew!

[JamesTC]

They should just get the arse flare guy to do host the channel. He'll whip them into shape. Him and that Michael Hunt.

[touchingcloth]

They should just get the arse flare guy to do host the channel. He'll whip them into shape. Him and that Michael Hunt.

Don't even use his name when he presents. Like Lost Voice Guy he could present the channel as Flare Arse Lad, Westminster correspondent.

[MoreauVasz]

The really depressing thing about this is that when GB News inevitably rebrands as something incredibly niche like a business news channel for crypto traders, Neil will walk straight back into a Daily Politics-type gig with the BBC as though nothing had happened

[Obel]

Seems like GB News is a catastrophe, as hoped and expected. Maybe it's time to move the thread to the Comedy Chat forum

[Sebastian Cobb]

Seems like GB News is a catastrophe, as hoped and expected. Maybe it's time to move the thread to the Comedy Chat forum

I kind of hoped, possibly naively, some old boy network pettiness would prevent this.

Although there was a thing on Novara and it seems he's got form for bouncing back from failed media ventures. In the past some of them were comparatively left-wing.

[idunnosomename]

Ideas for controversial new presenters to boost ratings:

Rolf Harris
That woman who put a cat in a bin
The McCanns
Baby Hitler

[Fambo Number Mive]

GB News viewers have won most of the political battles this decade. They've had ten years of austerity which allows them to enjoy other people struggling financially. They've had Brexit and avoided a soft deal, they've got Johnson in power, a government on their side in the culture war, been told statues will be protected from protesters...and still they kick off whenever anyone on GB News does anything they disagree with.

It shows why Keith will never be able to win these people over - I think some of them would only be happy living in a fascist dictatorship. Keith would basically have to promise them he'd copy Hitler if he came to power before some of them would vote for him.

[dissolute ocelot]

The really depressing thing about this is that when GB News inevitably rebrands as something incredibly niche like a business news channel for crypto traders, Neil will walk straight back into a Daily Politics-type gig with the BBC as though nothing had happened

Neil fell out with Murdoch and had fuckups after, like The European newspaper was  shut down under him, but seems to be immortal. I'd hope the BBC wouldn't take him back, but he's still involved with the Spectator and could concentrate there or the Telegraph. There are also lots of rich assholes setting up news channels, like Egyptian-owned Euronews or some new Saudi channel. And changes at the Daily Mail...

[Blumf]

Go on you wusses!! Bring News Bunny back!