Ofcom boss insists he has seen nothing ‘problematic’ on GB News

An Ofcom boss said he has seen nothing ‘problematic’ on GB News after brands pulled advertising from the new channel.

Group director of content and media policy Kevin Bakhurst said there was ‘nothing that would worry me as a regulator’ about its content.

Brands including Ikea, Vodafone and the Open University withdrew after pressure from hard-left campaign groups.

Mr Bakhurst, a former BBC news executive, said he was not part of Ofcom’s ‘formal monitoring’ but had been tuning in. 

He told a media industry event everything he had seen was ‘accurate’ and looked like it achieved ‘due impartiality’.

‘From what I’ve seen so far, and I was watching it through my news background but also through my regulator’s eye now, overall there’s nothing that leaps out at me as thinking “that’s problematic”.’

The channel, whose chairman is ex BBC veteran Andrew Neil, aims to be an alternative to left-leaning rivals like the BBC. 

The channel, whose chairman is ex BBC veteran Andrew Neil, aims to be an alternative to left-leaning rivals like the BBC

GB News presenter and former ITN veteran Alastair Stewart said indications were that viewers thought it had been an ‘own goal’ by those companies.

Mr Stewart said it was ‘pathetic, inaccurate, ridiculous and misleading’ and that some middle-ranking people in advertising agencies ‘got caught up in it’ and ‘decided that perhaps there was some upmarket publicity for them’.

The former ITV newsreader also spoke out about left-wing woke culture, which GB News regularly targets, saying it led to ‘intellectual walking on eggshells’ and that ‘I cannot bear it, I cannot abide it’. He added: ‘I just think it’s a nonsense’.

Mr Neil, a presenter on GB News, had accused big brands of being ‘in thrall’ to ‘far left agitators and cranks’.

GB News presenter and former ITN veteran Alastair Stewart (pictured) said indications were that viewers thought it had been an ‘own goal’ by those companies