GB News named most loved news brand in the UK in new poll

A news channel that has been warned by the regulator to "behave itself" has been named the most loved news brand in the UK.

GB News, which launched two years ago, beat more established brands such as The Guardian and The Sun to the top award in the 'News' category as chosen in Savanta’s BrandVue’s Most Loved Media Brands report 2023.

The channel has made headlines for the wrong reasons recently.

Earlier this month, the broadcasting watchdog Ofcom said it would be looking at GB News to see if the broadcaster was “behaving itself” after the channel breached its broadcasting code for the second time with incendiary claims about COVID.

The UK regulator said it was particularly concerned by guest Dr Naomi Wolf’s “significant and alarming claim” on the Mark Steyn programme in October 2022 that mass murder was taking place through the rollout of the vaccinations, which she repeated three times.

It had previously found that a broadcast aired on 21 April 2022 - also on the Mark Steyn programme - was in breach after it incorrectly claimed that official UKHSA data provided definitive evidence of a causal link between receiving a third Covid-19 vaccine and higher infection, hospitalisation and death rates.

Steyn officially quit his programme in February after claiming bosses had tried to make him pay for the Ofcom fines himself. He had not presented his show since suffering two heart attacks last year.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews also called on Ofcom to look into GB News following a show hosted by Neil Oliver in February.

A spokesperson said at the time: “It is highly concerning that GB News continues to air a show which embraces all manner of conspiracy theories.

“Somewhat inevitably, some of those invited on to this show represent organisations that promote antisemitic conspiracy theories. If the channel will not act, we expect that Ofcom will.”

It was revealed in a survey in March that the UK had the second-lowest level of trust in the press in 24 countries.

The study by King’s College London, which featured in The World Values Survey, found that only 13% of British people had confidence in the press.

Egypt was the only country with a worse ranking, with 8% of people in the North African nation having trust in the press.

GB News editorial director Michael Booker said: "In just two years on air, our rapid growth is testament to the connection we have built with our loyal audience who were crying out for a new, different voice in news media.”

While some established such as the BBC (14), BBC iPlayer (11) Sky (10) and ITV (12) all ranked higher, than GB News, they are regarded as "broadcasters" rather than "news" brands.

The top five brands on the list overall were Netflix, YouTube, Whatsapp, Google and Spotify.

The consumer insight was drawn from the opinions of more than ­­­­45,000 consumers through Savanta’s market intelligence platform, BrandVue Media.

Savanta described the study as a “celebration of the most emotively connected media brands in 2023”.