Advertisers who want to reach far-right consumers are now being offered a new platform, with GB News launching an “all-British” radio station that it insists will be playing only British music.
The station, which is due to launch on November 2, will host shows including “The Great British Drive Home” and “Great British Breakfast”. In a press release about the launch, the company said the station would be “built around the promise” of “All British, All Day”.
It will exclusively stream music performed by artists from Great Britain or Northern Ireland, or where the main proportion of the band is British, it insists.
A spokesman for GB Media said the station will celebrate “extraordinary achievements” in British music and “showcase artists from Great Britain and Northern Ireland across the generations.”
The station’s flagship drive home show, hosted by Rick Houghton, will be broadcast from his home city of Liverpool, which he called a “dream come true”. It is not known whether Reform leader Nigel Farage will get a show, like he has on GB News. Apparently his favourite ever song is My Way by the decidedly unBritish Frank Sinatra.
In fact, quite how the station will define British music is not known, or whether artists and their labels will want to be associated with such a broadcaster.
As most modern music has its roots in multi-cultural society, even classic British bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones lent heavily on black American music, which could leave GB Radio with little choice but to play songs like Lonnie Donegan’s My Old Man’s a Dustman, Bernard Cribbins’ Right Said Fred, Hubert Gregg’s Three Men in a (Small) Boat, and the “those were different times” ditty of Goodness Gracious Me by Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren, for which the British actor put on a mock Indian accent and a “black face”.
Chief revenue officer Ross Sergeant said: “GB Music Radio gives advertisers something genuinely new: a station built around a single, warm idea that almost everyone in this country can get behind.
“British music is a shared passion that cuts across generations, and we look forward to helping brands become part of the soundtrack to our listeners’ day, from Breakfast with Paul to weekend mornings with Nana.”
GB News, which has the tagline “the fearless champion of Britain”, launched in 2021. It is owned by British hedge fund manager Sir Paul Marshall and the Dubai-based investment firm Legatum Group.
According to monitoring by Stop Funding Hate and related campaign updates, companies that have recently advertised on GB News include The National Lottery; Trailfinders; Age Care Bathrooms; AllClear Travel Insurance; Dormeo; Emerald Cruises; Ideal Home Show; LeShuttle; Saga Travel Insurance; Shopify; and Jet2.com and Jet2holidays.
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