A laid-back promo video for Andrew Neil's TV news alternative pledges to 'show all parts of the UK to all parts of the UK'. Take note, W1A
Source Daily telegraph - 27/05/21
After months of teasing and vaguely worded Twitter statements, Andrew Neil’s 24-hours news channel, GB News, has finally added some meat to its bones ahead of its launch on June 13. Today the channel uploaded, on YouTube and social media, two five-minute videos inviting us to “meet the family”, ie its roster of keen-bean presenters, all dutifully lined up to sing GB News’s praises. No one utters the word “BBC” during the videos, but W1A be warned - they’re coming for you.
The lavishly-shot segments are clearly intended to set out the channel’s stall: “PC culture”, being told your opinion is wrong, and metropolitan elitism is out. “Ground-up reporting”, celebrating Great Britain, and giving a voice to those who feel ignored are firmly in. GB News wants to assure those who feel censured by the media that there is still a home in Britain for them. No one is getting “cancelled” here. If you think the world has gone mad, the videos cry, then GB News is here to bring a little sanity.
The clips are slick, fast-moving and jovial, with the presenters shown limbering up to speak to camera, joking around off it and taking part in a classy-looking photoshoot. The assembled talent are a blend of reassuring old hands (Simon McCoy, Alastair Stewart, Colin Brazier) and younger, more diverse voices (Mercy Muroki, Nana Akua, Inaya Folarin Iman). There is a sense of freedom, of shackles being thrown off - those longer-in-the-tooth talents (poached from Sky, BBC, etc) are at pains to help us to understand that they can breathe again.
“We want to mix it up – show all parts of the UK to all parts of the UK,” says former BBC News presenter McCoy. Crucially, GB News will, he says, be “less obsessed with what is happening in Westminster”. Some variety of this statement is echoed by almost everyone, including the former Apprentice contestant Michelle Dewberry, who is to host a nightly show Dewbs&Co, and who is “really looking forward to representing all the communities in the UK”. That’s all the communities, got it, BBC?
Former MP Gloria de Piero wants to reach out to the “under-represented”. Comedian Andrew Doyle (aka Titania McGrath) is here for people who feel the media doesn’t care about them. Stewart wants to speak for those “who haven’t been listened to in a long time”.
Brazier says exactly the same thing, seconds later, in case we didn’t hear Stewart. “Free speech is being slowly eroded,” he warns, while Akua states that “this PC thing has got completely out of hand”. GB News is already the boogie man for many on the Twitter-left. These quotes will give them plenty to feast on.
Think all that sounds a bit serious? Not a bit of it. None of the men were even wearing a tie! The ambition, they say, is to deliver news in a fun and informative way. “News can feel pretty humourless, a wagging finger,” says former Sky News man Brazier, who we can assume is off the Sky News Christmas card list. “I want it to be somewhere you can speak your mind without fear of censure.”
Time and time again it is emphasised that GB News will be an old-fashioned throwback, in the best possible way, with space and respect given to all opinions. Naysayers, of course, suggest that left-wing views will not see the light of day on the channel.
Doom-mongering, however, is out. This is not a channel for those who chuckled at the UK’s nul points at Eurovision. “We should be reporting some of the good news about Britain,” says GB News’s main man Andrew Neil, who will be hosting an 8pm show called, imaginatively, Andrew Neil.
TV historian Neil Oliver, a man with the air of a groovy college lecturer, will be celebrating not castigating Britain. “I am suffused with intense feelings of love for the British archipelago,” he says, ominously. Quake, ye complacent Islingtonites.
Frustratingly, few clues are provided as to what the channel will look like on air, with most of the footage shot against a nondescript white background. The tone, clearly, is laid-back and chatty, but absent are the traditional 24-hour news signatures such as fancy graphics or clips of reporters in the field. We will have to see the hosts at work.
The impression conveyed is that GB News is determined to chart a different route rather than go head to head with Sky News or the BBC. The question is, of course, whether this will chime with a British audience accustomed to having its news delivered in a certain (ahem, BBC) way. Is the comparatively sleepy world of British rolling news ready for its Anarchy in the UK moment?
Some critics have claimed that GB News is just a British riff on American right-wing cable news. And certainly anyone inclined to write-off Neil’s grand project as “Alan Partridge does Fox News” will have plenty of ammo here. There will, for instance, be a blend of "Fox and Friends" style lifestyle programming and harder-hitting output.
Still, the production values are whizz-bang, even in a mood-setting video which runs to a little over 10 minutes in its entirety. GB News comes to air with a reported £62 million budget. And though little is to be seen of the news operation (as opposed to the presenters holding forth in their civvies) it’s clear that Neil will have the means at his disposal to deliver his vision of news.
GB News will launch at 8pm on June 13, on Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media and online
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