Rachel Johnson makes dig at GB News during GMB appearance

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TV industry magazine Broadcast reported last week GB News peaked in its opening minutes with 336,000 viewers. This outperformed the 100,000 viewers who watched BBC News across the hour and the 46,000 who tuned into Sky News. Despite the strong start, the new channel has been rocked by a number of technical glitches throughout its opening week, with social media users complaining about poor lighting and sound quality.

On the opening launch, some of the guests including Nigel Farage and Sir Alan Sugar were also cut off briefly during their interviews.

But leading Brexiteer and former MP Kate Hoey reminded critics GB News is not funded by a TV licence fee unlike its rival broadcaster the BBC.

Ms Hoey made the comments as she was responding to Sunday Times columnist Rod Liddle’s claims that former BBC employees had mocked the “rather bumpy start”.

He wrote: “A lot of my former BBC chums seem terribly pleased that the GB News channel got off to a rather bumpy start.

“Ghastly and amateurish, seemed to be the verdict.

“But then, GB News does not have an annual budget of £4 billion, as far as I am aware.”

Ms Hoey responded on Twitter: “Nor do they demand a licence fee to watch #defundthebbc.”

Social media users were quick to agree with Ms Hoey’s sentiments as they lambasted the broadcaster.

One person wrote: “If only they were so efficient at making new programmes or spending Monet providing programmes people actually want to watch.”

Another added: “They are finished!”

And a third person seemed confident in Mr Neil’s new venture, despite the criticism.

They said: “GB News will be fine.”

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GB News: Kirsty Gallacher and Darren McCaffrey host show

Former BBC broadcaster Andrew Neil launched the channel after gathering a number of big names to help him take off the ground.

This included former Sky News presenters Kirsty Gallagher and Colin Brazier, former Sun executive editor Dan Wootton and Apprentice winner Michelle Dewberry.

The show has faced other controversy after big brands including Specsavers, Ikea, Kopparburg and Octopus Energy pulled out of advertising on the news channel, by saying they were not aware their adverts were being used.

The Swedish furniture company said in a statement: “We are in the process of investigating how this may have occurred to ensure it won’t happen again in future, and have suspended paid display advertising in the meantime.”

Kopparberg also issued a statement after realising its advert was broadcast on the channel “without knowledge or consent”.

And the popular beer brand said on Twitter: “We want to make it clear to everyone that our ad ran on this channel without our knowledge or consent.

“Kopparberg is a drink for everyone and we have immediately suspended our ads from this channel pending further review of its content.”

Mr Neil also warned about “cancel culture” as he opened his first show with a monologue explaining the ways the channel would be different from other news outlets.

He said: “We will puncture the pomposity of our elites in politics, business, media and academia, and expose their growing promotion of cancel culture for the threat to free speech and democracy that it is.

“We are proud to be British – the clue is in the name – and while we will never hold back from covering our country’s many flaws and problems, we will not come at every story with the conviction that Britain is always at fault.

“We won’t forget what the ‘B’ stands for in our title.”

Express.co.uk has contacted the BBC for a comment.

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