Now is the time to “make the news differently”, announced the moderator in his opening speech. He was sitting at a black table in a black suit on a black background. The start of the new British broadcaster GB News, which caused a sensation even before a single minute aired, and now especially now is drawing a lot of ridicule, was correspondingly bleak. It was three weeks ago that Speaker and President Andrew Neil rejoiced that the key was in the name. “We are proud to be British.” Apparently Northern Ireland was ignored when the name was found.

The rest of the show got a lot of attention mainly because one glitch followed another. In fact, in the early days, many things were reminiscent of teenage television, plugged into the parent’s basement. The comparison with university television is disrespectful to students, users of social networks are recorded.

Viewership numbers drop significantly after kickoff

“I am happy to address difficult topics with voices that have not been heard before,” promised a moderator on Twitter. Nonetheless, guests followed, including right-wing populist Nigel Farage, who had been playing from show to show for years to express his controversial views. If this fact is responsible for the bad probabilities or is it the constant mistakes? Andrew Neil’s tuning was still following 336,000 people. An impressive start. But since then it has gone downhill. While an average of 42,800 people tuned in in the first week, it was only around 33,000 on average last week.

And otherwise, things are not going as expected. Several companies, including the Swedish furniture company Ikea and the German company Nivea, announced that they would subsequently block their commercials for the station. A boycott? Neil was enraged.

The program is a walk through the themes

In fact, the daily show is a journey through the issues, from a journalist’s statement to the next couch talk: house building in Cornwall, volunteers looking for missing children, then a show that broadcasts ‘good news’. Then the viewer sees a video of a bear cooling off in a pool and a clip of robots dancing. Later, three women sit on brown leather sofas in the study and talk – chatting would probably be a better description – about racism, canceling culture and surveillance cameras, in the background screens flicker through the doors of glass and are supposed to convey a news impression, even if hardly anyone is looking at them, they can be seen on desks.

The station, so it has been assured for months, will take charge of “the people’s agenda, not the media agenda.” Far from Westminster, the center of power, political correctness. They wanted to report what was really going on, and of course that implied that the mainstream media weren’t doing the job.

What are the British really interested in? Dancing robots barely

So what are the British really interested in? Dancing robots? That can be doubted. A body language expert was recently asked if Joe Biden is really well disposed towards Prime Minister Boris Johnson, so the guest analyzed every gesture made by the President of the United States. New innovator? Too much to make the news differently.

Perhaps the creators also meant that they would rather do without factual reports. Because obviously too much news is not part of the range. Above all, there is opinion about it. On talk shows, discussion groups, there is actually ongoing talk and evaluation. For the most part, the exchange takes place in a comfortable and conservative bubble in which all kinds of commentators can venture into just about anything. Populism, yes please.

Proud of Great Britain as motto

Pride in Britain can be understood as a motto and fits in with a country where, after years of Brexit theater and ideological rule under Johnson, the Union Jack is now hoisted at every opportunity and patriotism is demanded.

The prime minister is likely to like GB News, which many people wouldn’t take as a compliment. But the politically correct orientation was almost announced at the station. As if in the media panorama of the kingdom with newspapers like the “Telegraph”, the “Sun” or the “Daily Mail” there were not enough in this spectrum.

Right-wing criticism of the BBC

In any case, Andrew Neil said he saw a pond here. He tried to allay concerns that GB News could be the face of US broadcaster Fox News. In any case, the financial framework to manage a project like this in a professional manner similar to Sky News has so far been lacking, let alone the fee-funded BBC.

Too left, too London-centric, too distant is the constant criticism from the station’s right wing. Since Neil, 72, received national attention for years as a prominent BBC interviewer. He is now president of GB, even if he announced two weeks after the start of the broadcast that he would be taking a break. After the noise of the last few months, anyone could understand it. But maybe even he is still stuck in too many places.