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Andrew Neil: "GB News will be proud of our country"

Andrew Neil explains the editorial ethos of his soon-to-launch GB News channel.

GB News chairman Andrew Neil has promised that the new station will be "robust" with its reporting but will also offer an alternative to "blame and divisive argument".

The UK's first major new news channel in more than 20 years, GB News is expected to launch in the coming months with a schedule focussed on programming and presenters rather than the standard rolling news format offered by the likes of Sky News and the BBC.

Explaining the channel's editorial ethos in a piece for the Sunday Express, Neil - credited with launching Sky News in the 1980s - wrote: "We will build a community, with programmes led by journalists and commentators with warmth, character, knowledge, humour and yes, at times, some edge.

"We will not operate on the assumption that every problem demands a government solution. Or that every solution must necessarily involve more taxpayers' money.

"We will even broadcast the good news, perish the thought! Seriously, we believe the British appetite for endless gloom, doom, blame and divisive argument is waning. People feel exhausted and battered by it.

"GB News will be proud of our country, even when revealing its shortcomings and its inequalities. Our default position will not be to do Britain down at every turn.

"We will be robust in holding all politicians to account - no-one can doubt my credentials in that regard - but we won't operate on the basis that they're all lying and incompetent. GB News will be passionate but it won't be shouty, angry television that denies people the space to have their say."

From launch the channel aims to be available to more than 96% of households in the UK and Ireland, with carriage already secured on Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media and Freesat.

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