What a tragedy
GB News facing ‘significant fine’ after losing High Court battle against Ofcom
Judge permits broadcaster to launch judicial review into regulator’s finding it breached rules
GB News is facing a “significant” fine for breaching Ofcom’s impartiality rules after failing in a High Court bid to block sanctions.
At a hearing on Friday, a judge refused GB News’s request for so-called interim relief that would have paused the regulator’s sanctions process pending the outcome of a review.
GB News is facing a “significant” fine for breaching Ofcom’s impartiality rules after failing in a High Court bid to block sanctions.
At a hearing on Friday, a judge refused GB News’s request for so-called interim relief that would have paused the regulator’s sanctions process pending the outcome of a review.
Lawyers for the start-up news channel said the publication of sanctions details would cause “irreparable damage” to its reputation.
But Mr Justice Chamberlain rejected the argument, saying there was “significant public interest in allowing Ofcom to complete its process and publish its decision”.
He said this would help to promote public confidence in the integrity of Ofcom’s regime and reinforce the importance of compliance among other broadcasters. The judge added that the sanctions process would provide important information to both GB News’s viewers and its advertisers.
The verdict means Ofcom can now push ahead with a potential fine after ruling that GB News committed a “serious and repeated” breach of impartiality rules in a live TV debate featuring Rishi Sunak when he was prime minister.
The court heard that Ofcom had provisionally decided to impose a “significant statutory fine” on the broadcaster. Its final decision is expected in the coming days.
However, the judge granted permission for GB News to launch a judicial review of the breach decision.
Ofcom has agreed not to enforce any fine or requirement for the channel to broadcast a statement about the sanction until the judicial review has been completed.
The regulator received more than 500 complaints about the hour-long debate programme, which aired in February and featured a question-and-answer segment between Mr Sunak and a studio audience.
Ofcom ruled that GB News had failed to adhere to impartiality rules and give equal weight to other points of view, either in the programme itself or in another linked programme.
GB News argued that the channel was in discussions with the Labour Party about a debate featuring Sir Keir Starmer and that by announcing its investigation just a week later Ofcom scuppered the chances of this programme taking place.
Lawyers for the regulator dismissed this argument, saying there was only a “speculative hope” that Sir Keir would appear on the channel and accusing bosses of an “immature” attitude to broadcasting rules.
If confirmed, the fine will mark the first penalty imposed on GB News after a dozen breaches of broadcasting rules on issues ranging from impartiality to its use of politicians as presenters.
The channel is separately challenging Ofcom’s ruling that two episodes of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s programme broke rules banning politicians from acting as a newsreader.
An Ofcom spokesman said: “We are pleased that the court has rejected GB News’s attempt to suspend the sanctions process, and has recognised the significant public interest in Ofcom completing it.”
Angelos Frangopoulos, chief executive of GB News, said: “We are extremely pleased the court has recognised the merits of our legal challenge and approved our case to proceed to the next stage.
“We believe some of its [Ofcom’s] decisions in relation to GB News have been neither fair nor lawful.”
