GB News Boss Criticizes Ofcom For Being Too Slow With Investigations

The boss of GB News has criticized Ofcom for being too slow with its investigations.

The UK regulator is in various stages of more than a dozen GB News probes and rapped the network over five breaches of its code last week in what was its biggest finding since GB’s launch.

But CEO Angelos Frangopolous said the regulator needs to speed up “so that any learnings we could take from the outcome [of investigations] we can apply immediately.”

Speaking to a House of Lords committee, the former Sky News Australia boss said “there is a large gap between investigations being started and receiving the outcome of the investigation, and receiving outcomes 12 months after an investigation has started is really difficult for us to operate in.”

“We’ve had more than 50 enquiries from Ofcom in the past three years and we have responded diligently and professionally and on time,” he said. “It’s only fair to ask Ofcom to respond in a reasonable period of time.”

Frangopoulos used the example of GB News’ Don’t Kill Cash campaign, which is being investigated over several breaches, one of which has already been found to have broken Ofcom’s code. “We have five still standing and would prefer clarity so we can move on,” he said.

The five code breaches over the thorny issue of politicians presenting news shows saw GB News placed “on notice” by Ofcom last week. Separately, the right-leaning news network has been summoned to a meeting at Ofcom’s offices for the second time in a year over Laurence Fox’s highly misogynistic rant, which saw Fox and controversial presenter Dan Wootton depart.

“Comprehensive” compliance

During a wide-ranging committee hearing on the future of news, Frangopoulos described GB News’ compliance regime as “the most comprehensive thing I have seen in my career.”

He explained that all members of staff are given regular training by an Ofcom board member and said “where we have got things wrong, we have processes and procedures in place.”

“We live and breathe [compliance] every single day because we know we are under a lot of pressure externally from those who may feel that we are not a positive contributor to the media landscape,” Frangopoulos added. “I believe very strongly that we are.”