In a wide-ranging interview on Sky News this morning, GB News Chairman Andrew Neil revealed that:
If the BBC had made a more generous offer earlier in the Summer he would have been tempted to stay with the organisation.
He is sceptical of the government’s approach to the “serious matter” of appointing a new Chairman of the BBC, saying “Charles Moore’s knowledge of broadcasting is pretty close to zero”.
He thinks Paul Dacre is a “formidable individual” and a “fiercely hard worker”, yet argues public appointments are becoming too politicised.
“When we launched Sky Television, I remember everyone saying it would fail. I’ve been at my happiest as a disrupter, as an insurgent.”
On GB News, Brillo was candid – providing seven key takeaways:
With Discovery in as the lead investor for GB News, “quite a queue” of others has formed to fill up the tens of millions in investment the channel is seeking. The funding round will be over by the middle of next month at the latest and Neil is “pretty sure we will be oversubscribed”…
The channel will be free to air on Freeview, on the Sky platform, on Virgin, and it will be streamed online by GB News too. The aim is to generate an audience quickly…
GB News will go in for “news-based programming” built around strong presenters or teams of presenters, to become “an appointment to view.” In the US this model provides strong ratings…
Comparisons with Fox News in the states “could not be more wrong.”
GB News will stand between what Fox News does in America and what existing broadcasters do in the UK. “There is a whole territory between them to occupy that could be very lucrative”…
GB News will always comply with Ofcom rules and have a variety of views and opinions. Ofcom is quite liberal with this, as it is happy with the clearly ideological Channel 4 News…
The channel will look at news in a different way. “After all what would be the point in simply trying to replicate what is already done. There is no gap in the market for what [Sky] and the BBC, and Channel 4, and ITV are already doing”…
