As Julia Hartley-Brewer departs, will the last person to leave Talk please turn out the lights?

Invites to her leaving do have been sent out “to say goodbye to my fabulous colleagues and favourite on-air guests”, with some of the fabulous colleagues who have been subject to her robust appraisals presumably now deciding on whether to give it a swerve or attend just to make sure she is actually going for good (Hartley-Brewer recently lashed out at the station’s compliance officer on air for not allowing her to show an image for legal reasons).

Scott Taunton, president of News Broadcasting, which runs Talk, said in a statement: “Julia has been an integral part of Talk’s DNA. Her tenacity, sharp wit and fearless journalistic instincts helped put the station firmly on the national map. She has consistently set the news agenda and given a powerful voice to her audience. We are deeply grateful for her exceptional contribution to News Broadcasting over the past decade.”

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Rats in a Sack

Stepping into Hartley-Brewer’s shoes is perhaps the only broadcaster whose political views could make JH-B seem like Ed Davey: Alex Phillips, the former Brexit Party MEP who double-jobs as a policy advisor to Reform. She will move from her Friday morning show to Mondays to Thursdays.

Phillips is a brave choice – in September, Rats reported how useless regulator Ofcom were deciding whether to investigate her following shows in which she spoke first of the country being “invaded by thousands of illegal barbarians from alien cultures who pose a national security risk” and another incredibly saying refugees had been “brought up in brutal, ferocious, bestial cultures where rape is normal” and “a bit like XL Bullies… they are bred to be dangerous”.

But Hartley-Brewer’s flit and Phillips’s rabid rants are the least of Talk’s problems. Gossip in the Baby Shard, the station’s headquarters in London Bridge, is that Murdoch is about to pull the plug on the online TV channel which has been a financial disaster from the get-go.

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Rats in a Sack

TalkTV, as it was, launched in 2022 with an enormous advertising budget and Piers Morgan as its star presenter on a rumoured £50 million multi-year contract. But it bombed, failing to attract an audience and going online-only in 2024, losing both its weekend programming and the ‘TV’ from its name. 

Despite adverts on the side of buses saying “Love him or hate him, you won’t want to miss him,” most people did, and Morgan swiftly departed to launch his own YouTube venture.

Every high-profile presenter has since left and viewership is tiny. The very expensive Jeremy Kyle’s show is said to have been a disappointing flop (and he is thought to have his eye on running for Reform anyway) and the behind-camera staff are said to be “skeleton” with inexperienced producers expected to produce several shows a day. There are also said to be tensions between presenters and backroom staff, with the former considering some of the latter (inevitably in their early 20s) “woke”.

Word at Talk is that Hartley-Brewer’s departure, as the only presenter left who still draws in any significant numbers, is “the final nail in the coffin” and the channel could close as soon as the end of this year. Bad news for staff at the beleaguered station, then – although arguably worse for GB News producers, who now get to cope with her, er, unique style!