Ofcom has launched investigations into GB News and TalkTV as the media regulator struggles to handle how rightwing television channels are employing serving politicians as presenters.
GB News and TalkTV’s willingness to push opinionated television news in a manner not traditionally seen on British television has left Ofcom playing catch-up, trying to apply a broadcast code written in a different era dominated by the BBC and ITV.
British broadcast rules ban serving politicians from acting as news presenters on television and radio stations, unless there are exceptional circumstances. However, politicians are allowed to host current affairs discussions – with the line between the two increasingly hard to distinguish.
Any change to the rules could be politically contentious, given the main beneficiaries of the new channels have been Conservative MPs.
Ofcom said it had received 40 complaints objecting to the former Conservative minister Jacob Rees-Mogg acting as a newsreader on a breaking news story after a jury found Donald Trump sexually abused a journalist.
The regulator is also investigating whether Rupert Murdoch’s TalkTV broke rules requiring news and current affairs to be presented with due impartiality, over comments by the Alba party leader, Alex Salmond. Salmond hosted a discussion in April on whether the SNP, his former party, was “hold[ing] back the course of independence”.
GB News is already being investigated by Ofcom after it allowed the serving Tory MPs Esther McVey and Philip Davies to interview the Conservative chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, about his spending plans. The regulator is considering whether the MPs, who are a married couple and each earned about £1,000 per episode of the show, included a broad range of views when interviewing one of their colleagues.
The race to secure lucrative presenting jobs on the new channels has benefited several sitting Tory MPs. Other MPs with shows include GB News’s Lee Anderson – who recently filmed a promotional video for his broadcast on the roof of parliament – and TalkTV’s Nadine Dorries, who has indicated that she intends to step down as an MP.
Ofcom said it was researching whether British viewing audiences felt the ban on MPs presenting news programmes was still fit for purpose.
It said: “The rules around politicians presenting programmes were first introduced in 2005. Given the rise in the number of current affairs programmes presented by sitting politicians and recent public interest in this issue, we are conducting new research to gauge current audience attitudes towards these programmes.
“This will be carried out by an expert research agency and we aim to publish the findings later this year.”
