UK Media: Ofcom Investigates GB News Over Impartiality Rules

Ofcom, the broadcast regulator, has a number of active investigations into GB News over alleged breaches of the statutory requirement for broadcast news and current affairs to be impartial. The investigations, which address specific programme content and presenter conduct rather than the channel’s overall editorial direction, follow a series of previous sanctions that have established a pattern of regulatory engagement with the broadcaster since its launch in 2021.

The impartiality requirement for broadcast media, set out in the Broadcasting Code and underpinned by the Communications Act 2003, requires licensed television and radio services to present news with due impartiality. The standard is more demanding than that applied to print newspapers, which operate without a statutory impartiality requirement, reflecting the historical basis in spectrum scarcity and the particular influence attributed to broadcast media on public opinion.

GB News and its supporters argue that the impartiality standard is being applied inconsistently between broadcasters with different political orientations and that the regulatory framework creates a chilling effect on conservative and right-leaning journalism that is not applied with equivalent rigour to left-leaning broadcast outlets. Ofcom rejects this characterisation, maintaining that it applies the same standards to all licensed broadcasters regardless of their editorial perspective.

The broader context of the investigations is a period of intense debate about the appropriate regulation of media in an era when the traditional distinction between broadcast and online publishing is increasingly blurred. Streaming services, social media platforms and online video carry political content without any impartiality requirement, creating what some describe as a regulatory asymmetry that disadvantages traditional broadcasters relative to their unregulated competitors.