GB News fined £100,000 by Ofcom following Rishi Sunak Q and A debate

Ofcom said it has fined GB News £100,000 for “breaching impartiality rules” following a question-and-answer-style debate with former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak earlier this year.

The media watchdog began an investigation into GB News three days after the broadcast of a program on February 12 entitled People’s Forum: The Prime Minister, in which Mr Sunak answered questions from a studio audience and a presenter.

GB News chief executive Angelos Frangopoulos said the broadcaster is challenging Ofcom’s “unnecessary, unfair and unlawful” ruling in court.

In a statement, Ofcom said Mr Sunak had “a largely unchallenged platform to promote his government’s policies and achievements in a period leading up to the UK general election, in breach of rules 5.11 and 5.12 of the Broadcasting Code”.

“Given the seriousness and repeated nature of this breach, Ofcom has imposed a financial penalty of £100,000 on GB News Limited,” it added.

“We have also instructed GB News to broadcast a statement setting out our findings against it, on a date and in a form to be determined by us.

“GB News is challenging our original infringement decision in this case through judicial review, which we are defending. Ofcom will not implement this sanctions decision until these proceedings have been completed.”

The rules state that “due impartiality must be maintained in matters of major political and industrial controversy” and that “an appropriately broad range of important views” must be included.

The broadcaster previously lost a High Court challenge to temporarily stop Ofcom from imposing sanctions, with GB News’ lawyers claiming it would cause “irreparable damage” to its reputation.

In October, Mr Chamberlain said the “likely impact” on the channel was “exaggerated” but gave the channel the green light to challenge the finding that it had broken Ofcom rules in the High Court.

Earlier this year, the channel was ‘notified’ that further breaches of the rules for due impartiality ‘may result in the imposition of a legal sanction’, after then-sitting MPs and a Conservative minister broke the rules for politicians. act as newsreaders”.

In a statement, Frangopoulos called Ofcom’s decision “a direct attack on freedom of expression and journalism in the United Kingdom.”

He said: “We believe that these sanctions are unnecessary, unfair and unlawful.

“The High Court has already given GB News leave to bring a judicial review to challenge Ofcom’s decision that the program breached the requirements of due impartiality.

“The sanction proposed by Ofcom is therefore still subject to that legal challenge.

“The plan to sanction GB News is contrary to Ofcom’s duty to act fairly, lawfully and proportionately to protect freedom of expression, especially political expression and on matters of public interest.”

The statement continued: “We have believed from the very beginning that the People’s Forum was an important piece of program of public interest, and that appropriate steps have been taken to ensure the necessary impartiality and compliance with the Broadcasting Code.

“It was designed to allow members of the public to ask their own questions directly to leading politicians.”

He added that the channel decided to “be regulated and we understand our obligations under” the Broadcasting Code, and believes Ofcom is “obligated by law to uphold freedom of expression and apply the rules fairly and lawfully” .

Mr Frangopoulos said: “We will continue to fight fearlessly for freedom, for our viewers, for our listeners and for everyone in the UK. As we have all seen, this is needed more than ever.”

In its original ruling, Ofcom said the episode featuring Mr Sunak was “presented in the context of the forthcoming UK general election”, which had not yet been announced but would take place within months, and would not have “a sufficiently broad range of elections”. . of important positions”.

It said there was “no problem in principle with the editorial format of this programme”, and that GB News “should have taken additional steps to” mitigate the risks due to the “very high level of compliance” required.

In March, Ofcom said GB News had breached due impartiality rules after some programs featuring Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg and Sir Philip Davies along with then Conservative minister Esther McVey.

Married couple Mrs McVey, who retained her Tory seat at the election, and ex-Tory backbencher Sir Philip are no longer part of the GB News line-up.

Ofcom has one open investigation into the broadcaster following an investigation into a program led by Nigel Farage, who became Reform UK MP this year.

Mr Farage’s January 17 episode of the channel is being looked at to see whether it broke the rules “which require that news and current affairs be presented with due impartiality and that politicians be prevented from acting as news presenters”.

Last year, Ofcom imposed financial fines of £25,000 each on religious satellite broadcaster Loveworld and Bauer Radio.

Bauer Radio was sanctioned after it stopped broadcasting Absolute Radio’s national AM service before the end of its license period.

Ofcom said Loveworld presenters made “a number of unsubstantiated, materially misleading and potentially damaging statements” about Covid-19 during two episodes of current affairs show Full Disclosure.

That same year, the watchdog decided to revoke RT (Russia Today) UK’s license due to “repeated compliance concerns” and following £200,000 fines for “previous breaches of impartiality”.

RT was off the air in Britain due to sanctions related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.