Farage Beats the BBC, More Than Triple Viewers of Comcast’s Sky: Report

LONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 07: UKIP leader Nigel Farage blows a kiss to a supporter as he leav
Carl Court/Getty Images
Victoria Friedman

Nigel Farage’s GB News evening show has beat the BBC for two nights in a row, after having higher ratings than establishment rival Sky News last week.

The viewing figures for Farage, showed nightly from Monday to Thursday on the new alternative news network, overtook BBC News’s 7 pm equivalent primetime show Outside Source, according to “exclusive” viewer figures reported by the London political news website Guido Fawkes.

On Wednesday night, Farage reportedly had 107,700 viewers compared to the BBC’s Outside Source, which had 93,300. The GB News star also had more than triple the viewers of Sky News Tonight (35,200), which is aired on the Comcast-owned Sky News channel.

Mr Farage has long-criticised the BBC — funded by a mandatory tax on anyone who watches live television — for its liberal-progressive bias, particularly recently over its coverage of the Black Lives Matter movement and its protests last summer and for contributing to the establishment media’s false narrative that “Britain is a seething cesspit of racists and bigots”.

“I think its [the BBC’s] days are numbered. I think the idea that we’re all going to go on paying over £150 a year for this thing is for the birds. It’ll take time for it to go because the status quo is a very powerful thing. Trust in the BBC is disappearing. I think what you’re going to see are media challengers to the BBC and others that will spring up over the course of the next year or two,” Mr Farage had predicted in June 2020.

Last week in Mr Farage’s debut on GB News, he had beaten Sky News every night of Farage‘s airing, putting the fledgeling broadcaster in similar positions that it had when it launched last month when it had more viewers than both of its mainstream competitors.

Earlier this month, GB News suffered a setback, however, when viewers, seeking an alternative to the leftist-progressive outlets dominating the news landscape, appeared to be boycotting the network after guest host Gutto Harri, formerly of the BBC and spin-doctor to then-Mayor of London Boris Johnson, took the BLM-inspired knee live on air. Audience rating figures seen by The Guardian claimed that some shows had zero or negligible viewers after the stunt.

When the network hired Farage, the Brexit leader pledged, “I won’t be taking the knee for anyone on this show,” with GB News executives reportedly saying they were “pleased that Nigel’s star power has given them a much-needed boost after a turbulent few weeks”.

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