GB News had its first full day of broadcasting today. The rolling news channel will apparently be providing “stories that matter to the whole of the UK” – where have we heard that before?
We tuned in for a quick sample – and we apologise to our readers for giving them an extra viewer, but Andrew Neil gets so riled by our paper that we couldn’t help having a little laugh at his expense.
READ MORE: GB News: Five bizarre moments from Andrew Neil's opening show
It wasn’t quite the smoothest of launches.
The more light-hearted approach to their reporting was unfortunately coupled with a long list of technical blunders, giving off quite the air of unprofessionalism even when when the subject matter was a little bit more logical.
One afternoon segment that we did at least get a laugh out of was based around the question “is dating a narcissist unhealthy?”.
Yes, serial retweeter of his own praise Andrew Neil really did allow that question to be broadcast on his TV channel. Scotland may have lost today, but the only own goal was scored here.
After an initial bizarre description of what narcissism is from the hosts, in which Liam Halligan described what was then pointed out to him by co-presenter Gloria De Pietro to be gaslighting, the programme swiftly changed to discuss a memorial being erected to Dame Vera Lynn.
The erratic structure continued as viewers were then introduced to four roving reporters.
Was it finally time to hear about stories from the whole of the UK? Three of the reports were in England and one in Wales.
Scotland’s first match of Euro 2020 was about to kick off at Hampden – but viewers were met with a reporter outside Wembley simply listing off weather puns based on London tube stations he saw yesterday.
As De Pietro and Halligan’s programme came to an end, Alex Phillips and Simon McCoy were now at the helm and the topic of narcissism was back.
Providing a stellar example, former Brexit party politician Phillips informs the nation she “thinks her views are reflective of the population”.
The hand-off between the two pairs of hosts was as chaotic as we’d come to expect, and as they attempted to round up their conversation, an overlaid definition of a narcissist took over the whole screen in a moment of apt technical glitching.
De Pietro and Halligan could then still be heard giggling and laughing as they exited from the studio, drowning out McCoy and Phillips introducing their new show for the first time.
Maybe they were laughing about the chairman of their “British news channel”, Andrew Neil, living in a villa in the south of France? We still are.
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