GB News: Huge losses continue despite sales and audience surge
GB News has reported another huge loss despite its revenue more than doubling and its audience continuing to grow.
The TV channel, whose well-known presenters include Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, fell to a pre-tax loss of £33.4m in the year to 31 May, 2024.
The loss comes after GB News also made a pre-tax loss of £42.4m in the prior 12 months.
Newly-filed accounts with Companies House also show that the channel’s revenue more than doubled over the same period from £6.6m to £15.7m.
From advertising, GB News generated a revenue of £8.8m, up from £4.2m, while its digital sales rose from £2.1m to £5.7m.
Sponsorship revenue grew from £127,963 to £429865 but radio revenue was slashed from £131,166 to £51.243.
According to Barb figures, GB News racked up an average of 3.1m month viewers in the year, up from 2.7m, while its average linear share rose from 0.45 per cent to 0.69 per cent.
Across its owned and operated website and apps, GB News secured 17.9m unique views, up from 17.3m, and 72.9m page views, up from 51.9m.
On Facebook and Youtube, its reach rose from 37.8m to 48m while its subscribers across all main social media platforms also increased from 2.5m to 3.9m.
GB News ‘to be largest news channel by 2028’
A statement signed off by the board said: “With television audience share up 53 per cent and radio audience share up 61 per cent year on year, audiences across linear platforms again grew strongly in the last year.
“To drive this growth, the management continued to evolve the company’s programming line up and adapted to the inevitable challenges faced by the group as it takes market share in a well-established market.
“The company’s digital operation also continued its strong growth trajectory, where both the company’s owned and operated sites as well as social media remain robust.
“Page views on the group’s website and app increased by 41 per cent compared to May last year, whilst reach on Facebook and YouTube grew by 27 per cent with aggregate subscribers across all the major social media platforms increasing by [around] 1.4m to 3.9m subscribers.
“This encouraging usage data is highly supportive of the company’s stated ambition of becoming the UK’s largest news channel by 2028.”
On its future, GB News said: “Looking ahead, the company is focused on audience growth and a continuing commitment to high quality, independent journalism for all communities within the United Kingdom.
“The directors are confident about the future outlook for the company.”
GB News started broadcasting in 2021 and is owned by All Perspectives Ltd, a holding company backed by hedge fund millionaire Sir Paul Marshall and investment firm Legatum as well as other backers.
As of the end of its financial year, the total investment All Perspectives Ltd had provided to GB News had increased from £83.8m to £117.9m.
Sir Paul acquired The Spectator in September 2024 for £100m.
Earlier this month, Morning Wire reported how the publication crashed into the red for the first time in more than a decade after its initial sale to RedbirdIMI.