GB News fined £100,000 by Ofcom over Rishi Sunak programme
GB News has been fined £100,000 for breaking impartiality rules over a programme featuring Rishi Sunak, Ofcom has said.
It comes after the media watchdog announced in May that the show called People’s Forum: The Prime Minister had breached broadcasting guidelines.
The programme featured then prime minister Mr Sunak answering questions from a studio audience and a presenter.
GB News chief executive Angelos Frangopoulos said the fine was a “direct attack on free speech and journalism in the United Kingdom”.
“We believe these sanctions are unnecessary, unfair and unlawful,” he added.
The hour-long show, which aired on 12 February, prompted 547 complaints to Ofcom.
The regulator found earlier this year that while featuring Mr Sunak was fine in principle, “due weight” should have been given to an “appropriately wide range of significant views” other than the Conservatives.
Pic: PA
Ofcom said Mr Sunak “had a mostly uncontested platform to promote the policies and performance of his government in a period preceding a UK general election,” which it recorded as a breach of impartiality rules.
The watchdog said “given the seriousness and repeated nature of this breach,” it had imposed a £100,000 financial penalty.
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GB News was also directed to “broadcast a statement of our findings against it, on a date and in a form determined by us”.
The TV channel is challenging the breach decision by judicial review and Ofcom will not enforce the sanction decision until those proceedings are concluded.
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Mr Frangopoulos insisted the show featuring Mr Sunak “was an important piece of public interest programming”, and that “appropriate steps” were taken to ensure due impartiality.
He added: “It was designed to allow members of the public to put their own questions directly to leading politicians.
“GB News chooses to be regulated and we understand our obligations under the Code.
“But, equally, Ofcom is obliged by law to uphold freedom of expression and apply its rules fairly and lawfully.”
Ofcom previously found GB News violated due impartiality rules in March over five programmes that featured Tory MPs as presenters.
Comedian Marcus Brigstocke has revealed he became addicted to pornography and received help to overcome the issue.
The TV star discussed the issue on The Hidden 20% podcast, saying he became addicted after he had an affair which led to the end of his first marriage.
Brigstocke, who has regularly been a panellist on Have I Got News For You and featured in the film Love Actually, said the “shame” from his affair “led to a lot of very dysfunctional behaviour”.
He told the podcast: “I’d stayed sober from drugs, alcohol, and my compulsive eating disorder, but I had become addicted to porn.
“I really had no idea that I was addicted to it. I sort of thought I looked at a normal amount of porn. Well, the normal amount of porn today is not like a normal amount of porn… before the internet.”
Brigstocke, 51, told host Ben Branson that most porn addicts “were addicted from about the age of 11”, saying it “profoundly alters your brain chemistry”.
“There are so many people with different depths of addiction to porn and to online social media,” he added. “But porn is the most toxic.”
The comedian said he would watch porn “all night, for the entire night”, before he received help to end his addiction.
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Brigstocke is now married to comedian Rachel Parris and the couple host a podcast called How Was It For You?
Rufus Sewell may seem to perfectly personify calm and confident characters in the acting world, but he admits he still struggles with public speaking.
“There’s nothing more terrifying,” he tells Sky News. “I remember having to do a reading at a church when I was very young and I was so nervous. I was at drama school, so people knew I wanted to be an actor, and as I was walking up towards the lectern I heard someone say, ‘this will be good’, and I completely froze.”
After portraying Prince Andrew in Scoop, which told the story of the royal’s infamous Newsnight interview in 2019, the British actor can now be seen on screen playing political superstar Hal Wyler in the second series of The Diplomat.
Sewell also recently played Prince Andrew in Scoop. Pic: Netflix/PA
Despite his ability to inhabit his characters, both real and fictional, the “idea of speaking as myself” he says has always been “a horror”.
Even playing confident characters is nerve-wracking, he says, as it creates an internal battle between himself and the role. “I naturally, if left to my own devices, become very, very self-conscious, so I have to find ways to trick myself out of it.”
In The Diplomat, Sewell’s character is the estranged ex-husband of Kate Wyler, the US ambassador to the UK, played by Keri Russell.
Pic: Netflix
She spends the first season navigating political minefields trying to prevent a war before it happens, after a British aircraft carrier is blown up off the coast of Iran.
The series ended on a cliffhanger that saw Hal and other political figures involved in a car explosion in London, and season two picks up following the threads of evidence left in the aftermath.
Russell credits the show’s creator, Deborah Cahn, with making the series such a thriller.
“That is the gold of our show, 100%,” she says. “She has this uncanny ability to portray political intrigue and the world of diplomacy, but also has this innate understanding of what makes people human and all the idiosyncratic weird things that make people normal.
“Even though they’re in this really seemingly powerful position, they still have bad days and are cranky, or get mad when their food is the wrong thing, or when they have to wear something they don’t like, and they still deal with all the embarrassments of daily life.”
Season two of The Diplomat out now on Netflix
Nearly 20 additional Cineworld cinemas are facing the threat of closure next month amid crunch talks with landlords.
Sky News has learnt that the company has compiled a list of 18 sites across the UK which could shut before Christmas if deals are not reached with their owners.
If negotiations to keep them open fail, the closures would add to five already shut during the summer, taking the total to 23.
Cineworld recently secured court approval for a restructuring plan which imposed steep rent cuts on many of its cinemas’ landlords.
The controversial plan attracted opposition from a string of blue-chip landlords, including British Land and Land Securities, but won sufficient support from creditors to be pushed through.
The uncertainty over a further 18 sites contradicts the company’s assertion in August that only five sites would close and that reports that roughly 25 were at risk were “inaccurate”.
A spokesperson for Cineworld said: “We want to reassure our customers and staff that we have no plans to close any additional cinemas beyond the five already closed.
“However, there are 18 cinemas left within our estate where we are awaiting further communications from landlords regarding their intentions.
“We are pleased to confirm that none have served notice to date, and we remain hopeful that they will work with us to keep these cinemas open.”
Documents circulated as part of the restructuring plan process highlighted the fact that the company did not have sufficient funding to meet a quarterly rent bill on June 24 of £15.9m.
“Absent this funding, the UK Group would have been insolvent on a cashflow basis,” they said.
Other cinema operators are now poised to step in to take over some of Cineworld’s other sites.
The company trades from more than 100 locations in Britain, including at the Picturehouse chain, and employs thousands of people.
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Cineworld grew under the leadership of the Greidinger family into a global giant of the industry, acquiring chains including Regal in the US in 2018 and the British company of the same name four years earlier.
Its multibillion dollar debt mountain led it into crisis, though, and forced the company into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2022.
It delisted from the London Stock Exchange in August 2023, having seen its share price collapse amid fears for its survival.
Cineworld also operates in central and Eastern Europe, Israel and the US.
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