Congratulations to Sky News, named News Channel of the Year in the Royal Television Society’s swanky annual awards at London’s Park Lane Hilton last night, a gong its executive chairman David Rhodes said was “meaningful for so many hardworking colleagues”.
Sky’s rival GB News, meanwhile, reacted to their win with the customary grace for which its presenters have become known. Beverly Turner, the conspiracy theorist who hosts its late night show from Washington, DC, wrote on X: “Always so predictable…. I can tell you what they don’t have: people who come up to the presenters on the street, hug them and say, ‘you keep me sane!’”
“GB News does something much more special than winning Establishment awards.”
Leaving aside Turner’s fanciful tale of unsolicited on-street huggings, there may have been other reasons why GB News failed to pick up the award on the night. One may have been its shonky coverage, eschewing actual news reporting for little-known pundits speaking their brains from its Paddington studio.
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Another may have been its absurdly biased coverage and propensity to employ serving Reform politicians as its presenters, up to and including its actual leader.
Or the other might have been that they weren’t actually nominated, Sky News battling it out with Al Jazeera English and the BBC News Channel. Who knows?
Meanwhile, the latest figures on the channel’s finances show it only lost £22 million last year, meaning the amount owners Paul Marshall and Legatum Ventures have lost since it launched in 2021 is now a mere £131 million. It comes as the channel cut its wage bill by nearly £3 million in the year to May 2025 to £19.7m and reduced its overall staff headcount from 311 to 263.
Still, GB News does something much more special than actually break even financially!
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