Ofcom fines GB News £100,000 for giving Rishi Sunak an uncontested platform

Ofcom has opened 19 investigations against GB News, and found the group to be in breach 12 times.

UK media watchdog Ofcom has fined GB News £100,000 for giving Rishi Sunak an uncontested platform, in what is the first financial sanction against the right-wing channel which has repeatedly breached the UK broadcasting code.

Ofcom announced today that its investigation had found that a live, hour-long programme in February where viewers quizzed Sunak failed to meet the impartiality requirements for a current affairs show.
It stated: “Ofcom’s earlier investigation found that an appropriately wide range of significant viewpoints was not presented and given due weight in People’s Forum: The Prime Minister – a live, hour-long current affairs programme broadcast on 12 February 2024 – nor was due impartiality preserved through clearly linked and timely programmes.

“As a result, we concluded that the then Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, had a mostly uncontested platform to promote the policies and performance of his Government in a period preceding a UK General Election, in breach of Rules 5.11 and 5.12 of the Broadcasting Code.”

Ofcom had repeatedly been criticised for having a soft approach to GB News. The media watchdog has opened 19 investigations against GB News, and found the group to be in breach 12 times.

GB News has repeatedly been criticised for pushing a right-wing agenda. Last year for example, Ofcom found that GB News broke impartiality rules after Chancellor Jeremy Hunt was interviewed by fellow Tory MPs Esther McVey and Philip Davies, with the channel ‘failing to represent and give due weight to an appropriately wide range of significant views on a matter of major political controversy’.

Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward