The news channel launched at 8pm on Sunday evening.
The launch of GB News was watched by more people than both the BBC News channel and the Sky News channel according to data released on Monday.
The news channel, fronted by Andrew Neil, was launched on Sunday with Neil delivering its mission and values to camera. The channel claims to "lend an ear to some of Britain's marginalised and overlooked voices," and champions its anti-wokeness.
And according to the TV industry magazine
Broadcast, it peaked in its opening minutes with an audience of 336,000. Between 8pm and 9pm it averaged a viewership of 262,000, significantly more than the 100,000 who watched BBC News across the hour and the 46,000 who watched Sky News.
Broadcast said 57% of GB News’ opening show’s audience was male, while 52% were aged 65 years or older and 82% were from middle class demographics.
The channel did tweet its own figures, claiming to have attracted a 1.1% audience share between 7pm and 11pm. However it is unlikely that the BBC will be worried by these figures, as they were dwarfed by those of the main channels, with BBC News at Ten attracting a 30.6% audience share.
https://twitter.com/GBNEWS/status/1404363689025847296
The launch of GB News was also hampered by technical issues, with poor picture and sound quality being apparent throughout the opening night.
Many also couldn't help but notice how cheap-looking the whole set-up was.
https://twitter.com/DawnButlerBrent/status/1404451506020130824
https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1404165082410622977
https://twitter.com/TheNewsAtGlenn/status/1404163293779042306
The channel has championed itself as new voice in the media world, swimming against the tide of so-called cancel culture and apparent wokeness.
In Neil's opening monologue to the channel, he said: "We are proud to be British – the clue is in the name." Although Neil himself lists his main residence as France in documents.
https://twitter.com/WritesBright/status/1404152905632993283
