GB News has been whacked with a massive fine for breaching impartiality rules in the run-up to the general election – but, given the amount the far right channel is already losing, the chances are its beancounters will barely notice.
The station was fined £100,000 for broadcasting People’s Forum: The Prime Minister in February, a show which gave the then Conservative leader Rishi Sunak a full hour to broadcast his views to a grateful nation (or at least the average 153,000 viewers who tuned in).
No other party leaders were afforded the same opportunity, not even Reform’s Nigel Farage – although he at least gets to broadcast unchallenged for four hours a week and gets paid a pretty penny for the privilege – a whopping £81,607 for just 36 hours’ work in September, according to the latest figures he has declared in Parliament’s register of interests.
Still, at least the channel should be largely unperturbed by the size of the fine – £100,000 is just 0.2% of its most recently reported annual loss. Operating losses at the channel grew 38% to £42.4m in the year to May 2023, meaning investors have shouldered total losses of £76m since the channel launched in June 2021 – that’s over £61,000 down the toilet per day.
Given that, they’ll probably just cough up the fine from petty cash…
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