GB News

Isn't the opposite of 'woke' 'asleep'?

Andrew Neill's vision is all very well but how it will translate to the screen and how it builds the following he wants is another matter. New ventures like this rarely conform to their original vision and level of resources - launch budgets disappear as do presenters and management, and direction changes.

I think 'Gammon Broadcasting' will struggle as its planned, that's a lot of journalists to hire and pay for. I'm assuming of course that they'll be hiring proper journalists and paying them properly, which might not be the case, though not doing so has its own issues. It's still not clear what NewsUK are proposing but they already have the staff and resources, they're not going into it from scratch

Look at what the vision the local TV channels had, and what they turned into.

You might also wonder about Neill's promise to avoid metropolitan bias by having 120 journalists based outside London. The BBC probably deploys four or five times that number in their regional offering, if you include online and digital platforms - and that's after recent cuts. With multiple BBC regional news and political programmes it will be difficult to imagine how GB News can compete with that.

It was 32 years ago last Friday, Mr Neil. When you, of all people can't be bothered to put in a plain statistical fact replacing it with a tired generalisation, then what hope is there for the rest of the output to follow the chairmans lead?

Think you're getting really quite carried away if I'm honest, some of the outrage to GB News on here - before it's even aired a single minute of output - has long bordered on ludicrous. A single sentence in a newspaper promo piece tells us absolutely nothing about GB News' on air output.

For what it's worth, I think it was a deliberate choice not to specify how many years since Sky News launched. 'All those years ago' makes Sky News sound far older than it actually is, emphasising how long it has been since a 'new approach' has been launched in Britain.

Until GB News actually launches, can we dial down the ridiculousness? If on the first week Dan Wootton is cutting masks up and spreading vaccine conspiracy theories, then all the outrage on here will be perfectly justified. If GB News ends up producing legitimate content, you'll all have got yourselves upset over not very much.

I'm baffled as to how some people (more so on Twitter than on here) are coming to the conclusion that this will be the 'UK Fox News'. Remember, that whole thing was merely spin by some newspapers - what Neil actually said was the format would be similar to Fox News or MSNBC (but some papers only pick up the Fox bit for the sake of spin). The channel has committed to impartial news (and will have to retain that commitment due to Ofcom guidelines) and granted they could turn out to be slightly biased, but what's the harm in waiting until the channel has launched? Only then will we be able to make a proper judgment.

They are absolutely using the Farage/Trump handbook of trying to paint themselves as outside of the "elite", even though Andrew Neil has been at the centre of it longer than I've been alive. They are also trying to create a false narrative that the BBC, ITV/ITN and Sky don't have a presence outside of London, which is about as far from the truth as you can get.

I'm not sure a handful of press releases (that most people won't have seen) and a few newspaper interviews constitutes as creating a 'false narrative' to be perfectly honest.

Whether you personally agree or disagree with the effectiveness of the BBC, ITV, Sky, etc. there is a genuine market for those who are disillusioned with those services. I personally feel well served by the services that exist already, and trust that they are impartial. However, there are a fair number of people who do not.

GB News' problem IMO is that people will like the service initially - but increasingly start to dislike it when they start reporting on news their audience doesn't like. And that's the litmus test - will GB News report impartially on news that may turn their audience against them?

Until it actually airs any output , we just don't know, so I honestly don't see the point in getting worked up into ridiculousness over it.

Disillusioned conjures up so many thoughts. Those people who are disillusioned are looking for output skewered to their thoughts. They feel BBC etc are not balanced, by what they mean is a said report doesn't back their own belief or thought on the topic.

Now if the above is to believed, their output of news shouldn't be too different to what we currently see.

If you go down a Fox or CNN route, especially with CNN, you open first story by simultaneously speaking to a reporter and a commentator.

Really does make you wonder how he managed to stay reasonably objective on air at the BBC when he thinks like this.

If he didn't use terms like "woke warriors" in his Express column, I'd be more convinced of the channel's supposed impartiality, it really doesn't help the brand.

The expectations for their target Brexity demo may be disappointed if it isn't basically Faux News in all but name.

The more he insists it isn't Fox News the more like them he sounds. Only Fox News could put out a statement claiming they're a bastion of truth, Impartiality and inclusivity....and anti woke.

The comparison with Sky News is interesting, but he ignores the fact Sky News was part of something bigger and indeed bankrolled by more profitable parts of the business like Sky Sports and probably nowadays broadband. GB News isn’t part of some bigger organisation, at least not in the same way Sky News is and I’m not sure it’s backers will be as prepared to keep something going that is loss making as Murdoch was.

Also with Neil constantly comparing GB News with him launching Sky News, wasn’t he also involved with the launch of Fox News? Something he isn’t mentioning now, when that’s arguably the bigger success story.