GB News has been mocked on Twitter after it received lower viewing figures last week than a Welsh language version of a children's TV show.
Social media users made jokes about Andrew Neil’s channel as it was revealed more people watched the Welsh version of popular children’s animated series Paw Patrol.
GB News has been plagued by technical problems since its launch – with sound issues, sudden cuts to the weather and misspelled guests’ names on graphics. It has also seen advertisers dropping out amid a boycott fear.
In his introductory monologue during the launch of the channel, Neil said he wanted the channel to give a voice “to those who felt sidelined or even silenced in our great national debates”.
READ MORE: Andrew Neil to take a break from GB News after just two weeks of presenting
Despite starting off well with viewing figures of 336,000 after the launch, the outlook for GB News was looking very different at the end of week two.
Here are the viewing figures for a variety of programmes from June 24 as collected by Media Monitoring Services:
- BBC News at Ten: 3.6 million
- BBC News 1pm: 2.4 million
- ITV News at Ten: 1.5 million
- BBC Breakfast: 1.4 million
- BBC Question Time: 1.3 million
- Good Morning Britain: 717,000
- BBC News 9am: 294,000
- BBC Newsnight: 286,000
- Kay Burley, Sky: 54,000
- Sky News Ian King: 42,000
- Great British Breakfast on GB News: 32,000
- Andrew Neil: 31,000
- GB News DePerio & Halligan 16,000
- GB News Brazier & Muroki: 11,000
According to S4C, the Welsh language version of Paw Patrol got around 161,000 viewers more than once this year, five times as many viewers as GB News, which was on 31,000.
Other Welsh-language series, such as Pobol y Cwm, also managed to rise above GB News, drawing a total of 44,000 viewers.
One person wrote: “BREAKING: GB News brands Paw Patrol ‘woke’, ‘leftist’ and ‘Marxist’ after the welsh language version of the kids’ show trounces them in the viewing ratings.”
Another person said: "GB News being beaten in viewer ratings by Paw Patrol is absolutely the news we needed on a Monday morning."
READ MORE: These are five of the biggest gaffes from GB News' opening week
Someone else added: “Andrew Neil’s GB News now has less viewers than the Welsh language version of Paw Patrol. So, an animated 10 year old boy and 6 puppies saw off Andrew’s racist war-on-woke without even speaking English… or being real.”
“More people live in my village than all those that choose to watch #GBNews,” added someone else."
After the channel launched on June 13, it took just 48 hours for advertisers to begin withdrawing.
By the following Thursday 11 brands had paused or suspended their advertising, saying they disagreed with the channel’s values or wanted to understand more about its content first.
Neil reacted angrily by saying in return he may ban brands from advertising on the channel, as he did with the Co-op when the firm suggested it was considering no longer placing ads amid a row over an article on transgender rights.
When the Co-op said the statement was wrongly issued, the organisation and magazine agreed a truce.
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