GB News ‘fully funded’
January 6, 2021
By Chris Forrester
The planned GB News TV channel and digital services, proposed as an alternate to the BBC News and Sky News, is now fully funded.
Reports say the 24-hour channel, fronted by veteran BBC journalist Andrew Neil, has now received anchor commitments from Discovery International, hedge fund manager Sir Paul Marshall and Dubai-based investor Legatum Group. Some £60 million was being sought.
An announcement from GB News says that recruitment would shortly begin for 140 journalists and technical staff to join the “boldly different” all-news channel, but which is expected to have a right-wing bias in its coverage.
Neil was Rupert Murdoch’s initial chairman of Sky in 1989 and is a well-known personality on British TV He is also chairman of the right-wing Spectator magazine. He was editor of the Economist weekly newspaper in 1982, and subsequently editor of The Sunday Times newspaper.
The channel is expected to launch later this year. It is set to face immediate competition from another new news channel from Murdoch.