GB News: Launch

[eyeTV]

Are we going to see Simon McCoy doing the weather?

[johnnyboy]

The presenters have just spent 10 minutes discussing between themselves about ‘taking the knee’ without any input from guests. Seems really odd and quite dull.

Agreed. This type of format either needs a constant stream of guests/commentators and/or phone-in callers to work.

[Londoner]

Aren't the regional reports solo, so setting up/checking their own equipment?

It doesn't seem so: https://www.instagram.com/p/CQEUn06BzV-/

[BBI45]

So after all the issues last night, I thought I'd give them another shot this morning. All I can really say is that I'm a bit disappointed. I was willing to try and ignore the tech issues, but they were so frequent, it made them possible to ignore.

But the worst part was the content. With most news channels, within 10 minutes you have a pretty good idea of what's happening in the world. But in the 10 minutes that I was watching GB News (11:00-11:10), there was some (rather one sided) social media feedback, and a sluggish interview with a Skipper on a boat. The only thing I can truly say I learnt was that conditions are good in the English Channel today. If I really wanted to know that, I'd have tune into the shipping forecast. They proceeded to move on to taking the knee, which I've heard discussed so many times now on some many platforms, that I turned off.

I want to give the channel a fair shot, but it's difficult to do so when the content seems so mundane.

[London Lite]

Zero chemistry between Brazier and his co-host this morning. To go from Jayne Secker to this has to be the lowest point in his career.

[dafydd]

Despite their name, they're not a news-gathering operation. They should have just started a radio station, and stuck a few fixed cameras in the studios. They're not doing anything at the moment that requires pictures.

[Jon]

Zero chemistry between Brazier and his co-host this morning. To go from Jayne Secker to this has to be the lowest point in his career.

Although presumably she’s never done this before, so perhaps she should be given time to used to it.

The mic Rosie Wight is currently interviewing doesn’t seem to be working, but her own mic is fine.

[Ash101]

First night ratings from Media Mole

Welcome to GB News = 262,000 (1.7%)
- peaking with 336,000 a few minutes in

Tonight Live With Dan Wootton = 152,000 (1.3%)
- peak of 282,000 (1.8%) at 9.59pm.

(For reference but not exactly showing a lot, as GB News would've spiked interesting)
9pm till Midnight: BBC News = 139,000 (1.2%) & Sky News = 71,000 (0.6%).

[AllWillBeWell]

Surely issues like this should be picked up by the Director or technical assistant in the gallery BEFORE putting the OB to air, so begs the question why did they put the hit out in the first place and not just delay it.

There's been so many technical problems, it makes the BBC News channel's camera bloopers seem rather trivial.

Perhaps their equipment isn't calibrated correctly. It would explain why to us it seems dark but to them it may seem fine. Although surely someone would tell them. It isn't as dark on my Freeveiw feed but I have the brightness on full.

The audio issues still plague the channel, I would hope these would be fixed over the next week or so.

The suggestion their equipment isn't calibrated properly is worrying. An amateurish mistake.
That is one of the 1st tasks I would complete when purchasing new equipment. It seems incomprehensible that a TV channel would omit this?

I mean it's not a good thing considering it just started, you'd think everything would be calibrated as they had time. Unless someone messed up the calibration and they have to be re-done again. Or they didn't have a chance to test it fully.

However even the big boys have issues with calibration. They tend to have backups or can move somewhere else, GB news perhaps does not yet have that luxury.

[TVenthusiasm]

Quite weird, but the ads for some reason are not in full screen, with a large background border on all 4 sides...



But the weather graphics are alright. Needs a little improvement, but generally, looks good.

[Spencer]

The presenters have just spent 10 minutes discussing between themselves about ‘taking the knee’ without any input from guests. Seems really odd and quite dull.

Agreed. This type of format either needs a constant stream of guests/commentators and/or phone-in callers to work.

I was put in mind of Friendly TV this morning, watching two presenters with next to no content just filling time.

[mark]

I watched about half an hour of the breakfast show this morning, which I found easier viewing than last night.

A very polite interview with someone from the British Medical Association where they let him answer all the questions without interrupting or challenging him. This was a stark contrast with Dan Wootton's monologue about 'Boris Johnson bottling it' last night - so they're not just sticking to a single editorial position on the delay to reopening.

I liked that the guest for the paper review was the editor of a local paper, and they started with a story from her own paper before moving onto the nationals. That approach certainly fits with their promise to cover stories not being reported by other news channels. The live interview from Scotland with a local newspaper editor (even thought his audio was poor) was similar.

That said, there was a clear thread throughout the rest of what I saw that was all about criticising 'virtue-signalling' and, particularly, taking the knee. It wasn't purely a one-way thing, to be fair - two of the presenters were disagreeing with each other. But the prevailing mood felt quite 'anti'.

I feel like the show is heavily modelled on Fox and Friends, albeit a bit more watchable if you're not right-wing. And there's at least some evidence of them fulfilling their promise of reporting otherwise-unreported stories from around the UK.

[TIGHazard]

First night ratings from Media Mole

Welcome to GB News = 262,000 (1.7%)
- peaking with 336,000 a few minutes in

Tonight Live With Dan Wootton = 152,000 (1.3%)
- peak of 282,000 (1.8%) at 9.59pm.

(For reference but not exactly showing a lot, as GB News would've spiked interesting)
9pm till Midnight: BBC News = 139,000 (1.2%) & Sky News = 71,000 (0.6%).

I feel like ratings for the main late bulletins would also be useful in this comparison. If they are getting millions still, then it simply shows how little people actually tune in and watch dedicated news channels.

[DeMarkay]

Why have Colin and Mercy been moved to the other sofa when they're still on air?

[Inspector Sands]

One thing that’s struck me this morning is how dull the whole thing is to watch for any extended length of time. Either by design or by ignorance, they haven’t bothered to film - or buy - any B roll or GVs, so they have no way of illustrating stories without a graphic or live interview. Earlier, they did something on rental prices which went on and on - without shots of chimneys or a letting agent window to break things up a bit.

This was something I brushed upon on the pre-launch thread, a new news channel will struggle for pictures. There's on the day agency footage and once they cover a story they can archive and reuse that footage, but stock footage either historic or generic cover is something that needs some preperation.

A launch I worked on had this problem, at one stage all we had was a 90 minute tape we'd obtained from AP of major events of the 20th century! What the librarians did in the run up to launch was ask the camera crews to o out and film generic stockshots - places, people in the street, trains, cars, trees, flags and things like money. It gave the crews something to do and some practise and the library got lots of useful pictures