A guest on GB News, the new conservative British free-to-air channel, spectacularly pulled the wool over his interviewees’ eyes with a secret message mocking their ratings.
The channel, though launching to good numbers, has struggled with its ratings since. This particularly came to fore when viewers boycotted the channel after presenter Guto Harri took the knee on camera in solidarity with the English football team, who were the targets of racist abuse.
Then, GB News recorded zero viewers for some of its shows.
James Mills, who was senior strategic adviser to former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, successfully took a jab at the rtings – while on air on the channel himself.
He had appeared on a Friday night program to discuss the future of the UK Labour Party. In the background behind Mills was a whiteboard, with text reading ‘No one is watching GB News!’
Explaining the gag, Mills wrote on Twitter: “I just got cancelled (or as they call it “banned”) by what I assume was one of the editors of #gbnews but after their stance on taking a knee I thought I would have some fun rather than just say no to them…😂 #NoOneIsWatchingGBNews”
He went on to say that an editor then angrily called him and said, “people are tweeting about what you did so clearly it’s not true that no one is watching”.
My favourite bit was when the editor called me up angrily afterwards to say: "people are tweeting about what you did so clearly it's not true that no one is watching"… 😂😂
I guess we all measure success differently… tbf, given their viewing figs you can understand, low bar.
— James Mills (@JamesMills1984) July 16, 2021
GB News fans were incensed at Mills’ prank, with one responding to his tweet, “aren’t you a little ray of sunshine. I’m cancelling you too. Blocked.”
However, others responded with amusement, with one user simply replying with a crown emoji, while another wrote, “You’re a bad, bad person, and I like it. 😂”.
Featured Image: Twitter/@JamesMills1984
