GB News / Talk TV

[1701-e]

Originally Posted by Mr K

There was a similar headline in the Torygraph. Interesting they both single out the BBC in the headline and not Sky/ITN.

It's not like they have an agenda

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Mr K

Damien, switch off that rubbish, and get outside, its summer ! ��

Don't listen to Mr K, Damien. GB News needs its viewer!

[Mr K]

Even the Torgraph has had to admit GB News is crap....

The Great British Breakfast was boring, repetitive and cheapskate – no matter where you sat on the political spectrum
When GB News head honcho Andrew Neil announced he was bringing something new to the table he possibly forgot that people don’t like new things at breakfast.

Breakfast is for toast, Bran Flakes, possibly bacon but definitely not surprises and certainly not a Culture War. The new station, officially launched on Sunday evening, pledged disruption – again, not really a thing unless the pubs are open – and giving ordinary people a voice. Seriously?

For those of us who can barely look our own spouses in the eye before the first coffee of the day, “ordinary people’s voices” had the ominous ring of a threat rather than a promise.

But as it happened the sound on The Great British Breakfast was so comically bad it was often hard to hear anyone; the outside broadcasts were beset by glitches and amateurish, out-of-synch pieces to camera. The contrast with the breezily (forcefully) enthusiastic delivery of the presenters was so marked I was left hammering the volume up and down on the remote like a demented gamer.

But GB News was playing for real; breakfast time is the battleground on which any new station must fight for ratings and we were assured it would be appointment television. Truthfully the only less palatable appointment I can imagine would be a root canal. Wherever you sat on the political spectrum, this was unutterably awful; boring, repetitive and cheapskate.

The three anchors did their best. My God, they did their best. On a day when Raheem Sterling ruled after giving England its first ever opening victory in the Euros, GB News didn’t even play any footage of the match.
It’s hard to claim then, it was covering the stories “that matter to you”. Instead Kirsty Gallagher (smoky nightclub eyes), Nana Akua (amazing upper arms) and Darren McCaffrey (thwarted mansplainer who needs to work on his facial expression when someone disagrees with him) chit-chatted about whether fans who booed players taking the knee were racist.

Their sheer staying power was reminiscent of the old-fashioned voice-overs for the Lord Mayor’s Show – endless filling-in during the interminable longueurs. Meanwhile, over on BBC Breakfast, there was a jolly item on the auction of the tiny yellow 30D bikini that pinged off Barbara Windsor in Carry on Camping. I wish I could haver stayed longer but I was contractually obliged to return to GB News and it was back to the same discussion about the easing – or not – of lockdown. Of course it was.

The show ran an exclusive interview with Priti Patel which gave the Home Secretary an easier ride than she would have had on Woman’s Hour. I can only assume this was in order to reassure big hitters than GB News is friend not foe. Still, it felt like an opportunity wasted.

The Great British Breakfast is unlikely to blast the opposition out of the water unless someone – those investors who live abroad – pumps a lot more money into it and switches on the lights. Optics matter at 6am. So does sound quality. Headlines would be a help too, especially in the morning. But who am I to quibble with the GB News vision of a news channel without rolling news?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/gb-...tches-message/

Ouch!

In a way it reminds me of the launch of Today in the mid 1980s. Made much, pre-launch, of the fact that it would substantially be printed in full colour, but when it came to it, most pages were slightly off-register (the four colour plates weren’t aligned properly, so the pictures looked muddy, with colourful haloes around the edges). Sometimes they were dreadfully misaligned. Correctly lining up the CMYK plates prior to rolling the printing press is basic stuff, but at launch they simply hadn’t managed to hire anyone good enough to get it bang on, first time, every time, under the pressure of daily newspaper deadlines.

Some of the stuff GBN is getting wrong at the moment is the sort of thing that a competent crew from a small production company would spot, correct and re-take, if they were out making a corporate video. The problem GBN has is it’s making its mistakes live on air. The lighting, costuming and audio shortcomings should be remedied within a few days, even if, as seems to be the case, they’ve been unable to attract hires with substantial experience of producing live news. If you can’t spot these sorts of mistakes and you don’t know how to correct them, you really shouldn’t be working with TV cameras in any context whatsoever.

The editorial direction is another matter entirely. This is obviously where all the money has been spent so you would hope they’d know what they’re doing. That remains to be seen.

[mrmistoffelees]

Originally Posted by Chris

Ouch!

In a way it reminds me of the launch of Today in the mid 1980s. Made much, pre-launch, of the fact that it would substantially be printed in full colour, but when it came to it, most pages were slightly off-register (the four colour plates weren’t aligned properly, so the pictures looked muddy, with colourful haloes around the edges). Sometimes they were dreadfully misaligned. Correctly lining up the CMYK plates prior to rolling the printing press is basic stuff, but at launch they simply hadn’t managed to hire anyone good enough to get it bang on, first time, every time, under the pressure of daily newspaper deadlines.

Some of the stuff GBN is getting wrong at the moment is the sort of thing that a competent crew from a small production company would spot, correct and re-take, if they were out making a corporate video. The problem GBN has is it’s making its mistakes live on air. The lighting, costuming and audio shortcomings should be remedied within a few days, even if, as seems to be the case, they’ve been unable to attract hires with substantial experience of producing live news. If you can’t spot these sorts of mistakes and you don’t know how to correct them, you really shouldn’t be working with TV cameras in any context whatsoever.

The editorial direction is another matter entirely. This is obviously where all the money has been spent so you would hope they’d know what they’re doing. That remains to be seen.

I was going to mention the audio quality, streaming from their website (thought i would give it a look) and the quality was atrocious, gave up after two minutes

It's worth watching right now. I am not sure if it's banter or if these presenters really don't like each other but it's not working. Feels really unnatural.

And now they've played the wrong clip again.

---------- Post added at 17:30 ---------- Previous post was at 17:28 ----------

I think the problem with opinion-led programming is that it's actually quite hard to fill that time. The other channels can recycle the same packages over and over again but here they need to keep a dialogue going for hours on end.

[deadite66]

Please continue to hate watch and increase its numbers.

[1andrew1]

A big day in Stormont today then off to the wrong reporter (in Yorkshire) with no sound then off to Northern Ireland with poor sound starting part way through the broadcast.

Then to Scotland with lots of echo but titled Doncaster.

It's like a spoof TV show.

This is amazing.

They've gone to remote reporters. Keeping cutting to the wrong one, the voices all echo and I think they're talking about COVID approaches in different regions but one reporter talked about how Scotland need to score against England on Thursday.

[Sephiroth]

Whilst I'm sure they'll de-glitch the sound issues fairly quickly. But the content is absolute crap. Nothing to hold an audience.

It's not as if there's nothing going on - least of all with Brexit, Johnson screwing things up, Covid. It's bad right now.

Originally Posted by deadite66

Please continue to hate watch and increase its numbers.

I've seen people say we shouldn't watch but it's interesting to see a new channel being started, how often does that happen? I don't particularly care if it fails or succeeds so it's stupid to boycott it.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Damien

This is amazing.

They've gone to remote reporters. Keeping cutting to the wrong one, the voices all echo and I think they're talking about COVID approaches in different regions but one reporter talked about how Scotland need to score against England on Thursday.

It was introduced as news that's important to the region. Hence Arlene Foster's resignation in Belfast, the football in Scotland and...well, in Yorkshire, all the poor reporter could mention was Covid.

---------- Post added at 18:04 ---------- Previous post was at 17:58 ----------

Dewbs & Co logo looks like an estate agent's sign.

Background to her show is distracting as the staff behind her are so close.

She cleverly entices people to stay watching with talk of gremlins which she delivers on as we can see but not hear Boris Johnson speaking.

[Sephiroth]

They couldn't even do the PM's statement. They cut to it, but no sound now they're back to the studio.

Shit-show barely covers it. That smug Andrew Neil must be out of toilet paper.

[1andrew1]

Looks like a single-topic station:

3pm Today from 3pm, Simon and Alex are asking - How do you feel about the delay to Freedom Day?

6pm Should Freedom Day be delayed? That's the question Michelle Dewberry is asking on the first edition of Dewbs & Co.
https://twitter.com/GBNEWS

Goodness me, it's a new channel FFS.