To its critics, it is a British Fox News; to its creators, it is a vital correction to a liberal London-centric media. Can Andrew Neil’s upstart news channel change the face of British broadcasting?
For years, Britain’s rolling news landscape has been dominated by Sky and the BBC. On Sunday, a new rival, GB News, is entering the fray – and although its chairman and most famous face, Andrew Neil, insists that any comparisons to Fox News are idiotic, many see an echo in its plan to use outspoken presenters to discuss the most controversial issues of the day.
But Neil insists that the plan is not to tack to the right, but to address an audience which he says has been let down by the existing broadcasters – and which he believes is crying out for a channel that addresses its concerns. As the channel’s newly hired team race to be ready for their debut, Anushka Asthana asks the Guardian’s media editor, Jim Waterson, whether GB News is bound to be a participant in the so-called culture war – and whether a British audience really wants to see a radical departure from the more traditional model that dominates today.
