Fledgling news and opinion channel GB News suffered from a major technical fault on Sunday morning. Hardly anyone noticed until a video of the fault was uploaded by the broadcaster.
GB News dropped off air during its Sunday breakfast show at 6:16am. The channel’s back-up video kicked in with a loop of recent interviews and trailers for three hours until normal service could resume at just after 9:15am.
The three hour downtime initially gathered little reaction on social media, before a GB News uploaded a video of the breakfast programme, complete with all the technical issues. After a link to the video was posted on Twitter by TV writer and critic Scott Bryan, GB News removed the item from public view.
The channel’s launch was dogged by severe technical issues, including poor lighting, loss of reports and loss of external communications. Former presenter Andrew Neil cited ongoing technical issues as one of the reasons for his departure.
Ratings data show that for most of the day, GB News is struggling to maintain a significant audience. This may explain the lack of initial response to the outage. The channel has lost around 60% of its viewers since its launch. However, evening opinion shows have fared better, with the channel briefly moving ahead of rival news channels during that time.