GB News – not an inspiring start

GB news – a new 24-hour news and opinion channel is due to launch ON June 13 with a mission to inform those fed up with the BBC’s ‘woke’ culture and London-centric thinking. The CEO is Angelos Frangopoulos, who turned Sky News Australia into a right-wing megaphone, and the Chairman is Andrew Neil who will also host a political discussion show. Critics fear it will lead to the ‘Foxification’ of the UK’s broadcast media. Though the experience from down under was that advertisers were scared off by social media campaigns after offensive remarks from presenters and there would also be restrictions under Ofcom’s broadcasting guidelines.

   Although Neil has likened GB News to “a David among Goliaths, the underdog in a crowded market”, it is still costing £60 million; and industry analysts say they don’t see how the business model will hold up.

  It will launch 13 June 2021 at 8pm which gives a Sun Mercury in Gemini square Neptune which is not encouraging. Neptunian enterprises often fizzle out. There’s also a ruthlessly determined but also aggravating and frustrated Pluto opposition Mars Moon. What is more helpful is an Air Grand Trine of Midheaven trine Saturn trine North Node Mercury which will produce some traction. There’s also a grandiose, over hopeful Jupiterian Yod onto MC sextile Mars Moon.

 Andrew Neil, 21 May 1949, has had an illustrious and generally successful career as editor of the Sunday Times, chairman of The Spectator and a regular TV political show host. He’s a stalwart and serious Taurus Sun square Mars with an ultra-determined, good-in-a-crisis Mars in Taurus square Pluto – well used to coping with big hitters.

  He’s got tr Neptune opposition his Mars/Jupiter midpoint exactly now over the launch which generally points to plans not working out, a difficult birth and a sense of failure. That runs exactly till late July and repeats on and off till early 2023. Plus a disruptive tr Uranus square his Pluto from July onwards and conjunct his Mars in 2022 for a major upheaval and tr Saturn is also pitching in its tuppence worth of woe in 2022 onto his Mars Pluto square.  So not all running to plan.

 I’m not sure viewers need more news – they need entertained and cheered up not embroiled in rancorous discussions or sunk under a deluge of discouraging statistics.

23 thoughts on “GB News – not an inspiring start

  1. Depends on what time it was announced. It could have a Capricorn Moon square Mercury Libra, with a Libra Sun. Striving for balance and challenging the people. The Moon could also be conjunct Pluto and Saturn. Putting a bomb under the others and projecting authority. Britain is a Sun in Capricorn, if announced in the Morning the moon could be conjunct the U.K. Charts Sun in stead of the Pluto/Saturn conjunction. This would make it fit with the country. Of course, Mercury would square Saturn/Pluto, but as Mercury is in Libra it would strive for a balanced approach. Again with the Mars/Mercury opposition, it would mean the determination of the self fighting against others. All conjecture, but a different chart altogether, if you take the announcement as the launch. There is some merit in this, as contracts would have been signed. Perhaps Marjorie could tell us?

  2. Hello,

    GB News is going live on 13/6 at 8pm BUT it’s launch announcement to the press, and thus the UK, was (according to the Guardian) on 25/9/2020.

    Would that change it’s astrological chart?

    Thank you.

    • I notice Mercury is then square Saturn/Pluto and opposition to Mars. My solarfire programme says: You become stick on certain ideas and find it difficult to chage your mind, You are aggressive in your communications and are surprised when others take offence….not sure that’s better than: Mercury square Neptune: you have difficulty using your powers of discrimination. Your own thoughts and opinions are vague and confused and difficult to pin down.

  3. The BBC news used to be impartial and interesting-often reporting from all over the world. Sky news and BBC do seem to have a social and political agenda as do the newspapers.There is no freedom of speech now in the UK, only certain view points are repeated and repeated and repeated.I don’t watch these anymore as they are just repetitive and narrow minded.
    RT news,Euro news,France 24 and AlJazeera news channels have much broader reports from all round the world and come across as far more impartial and interesting.I think the BBC and Sky news helped cause Brexit as if they had been reporting more on Europe, people may have felt part of the EU.Theres much more going on in the world that isn’t reported on the BBC and Sky news.No wonder people are turning to you tube to see whats really going on in the world, people no longer trust the Main news.

  4. So glad to hear this. The notion that ‘the BBC is left-wing’ is laughable: I can’t watch BBC News any more because it is so biased towards our right-wing, authoritarian ‘government’. And the notion of ‘woke’ is toxic in the extreme, it’s just designed to be divisive and controlling and to diss the Government’s opponents: the opposite of ‘free speech’. So, I wish Neil and his vile ilk absolutely no success at all.

    What we actually nee in our media, and journalism, is some actual facts, and some responsible journalism that states things how they are and calls our decision-makers to account. Some scrutiny, some responsibility. Remember that?

    • Agree absolutely LisaV, l read somewhere that we are in a ‘Post Truth’ period, where people base their opinions on emotion and prejudice, not facts, hence the rise of popularism. This news channel certainly seems to be going to pander to this.

    • What’s wrong about watching more than one news channel.
      Is it that people dare to disagree with your views? and how am I vile for not agreeing with your thoughts, its because of irrational people like yourself that there is so much trouble in the world, look at Hong Kong, North Korea, you should try going to one of those places where you will find that your idea is their policy.
      I personally would prefer Great Britain where we are allowed the privilege of free speech and thinking.

  5. I wondered if the GB News facebook page would be more positive but I notice that the earliest Facebook item I found was 31 March 2001 18:00 which has Sun/Kiron in Aries in the 7th also conjunct the chart ruler Venus and Mercury conjunct Neptune. Pluto sextile Moon. I wonder if media firms ask astrologers for election dates? was 13th June the best of bad bunch.

    I think we need proper investigative journalism and whether they are left or right wing in their editorials shouldn’t effect the quality of fact reporting.

  6. Thank you Marjorie for having a look at this new channel. Turns out Neil himself is stranded in the South of France and may have to launch from there. Oh, dear.
    https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/1442682/GB-News-chaos-Andrew-Neil-stranded-France-latest-news-launch-date-video
    My understanding is that he was a much respected proper journalist. Why he felt the need to crap on his legacy with this foray into shock jock style nonsense makes no sense, except to undermine the BBC.

  7. Far right does not mean ‘by its very definition Nazisim’. And the UK press is overwhelmingly right wing. Just a fact check here from an ex-journalist.

  8. It shows right-wing fascists in their true colours. A very great many people who vote tory are good kind and decent people. You shouldn’t dump everyone in the same group. And as I remember the antisemitism exhibited by the Labour Party doesn’t make them take the moral high-ground either. Yet I don’t believe the vast majority of people who have voted Labour are antisemitic.

    As far as the unimaginative 1951, I would hope that life has improved greatly since then. Britain was still recovering from World War 2. But at least the NHS had made a start, rationing was coming to an end and millions of council houses were being built. Employment was far better than in recent times and the unions were having huge pay day. It was the golden age for left-wingers. So less of your sneering and prejudiced view of an age that you know nothing about!

  9. The Right-Wing is small-minded and unimaginative. Their increasingly shrill rantings leave me utterly cold.
    I have no time for their ilk. They are out of sync with the 21st Century and appear to exist in an alternative universe circa
    1951, where men were men and women didn’t work or had very menial jobs.
    Children were seen but not heard and there were no immigrants of any kind. It is the essence of the “mustn’t grumble”
    mindset, and ultimately a joyless existence. Recent events across the Atlantic show the Right-Wing in their true colours.

    • Thats quite the 2021 broad brush your painting with. I was born quite a bit later than 1951 and even I know it wasnt all Hovis ads and down tet pit.

      • Well I think it will be a good thing, to have more variety. Just because someone does not go along with the current trend for ‘hive mentality’ does not mean they are far right. Far right means, by its very definition, nazism and nobody who is part of GB News – or anyone who is not left leaning in political terms – is a subscriber to nazism. That is a whole other mentality on itself and the people who run and will work for GB news would be disgusted if they were compared to what is actually the far right.

        GB News will be a wake up call to the country and about time, say I. Not everybody wants to sign up to the red communist way that corbyn and his ilk would have the country mired in. Some people have common sense and know to avoid that.

  10. I do not know where you get the idea that right wing newspapers outnumber left-wing ones. There are way more left-wing ones. Three tabloids and two broadsheets aren’t exactly an overabundance in anyone’s book.

  11. Oh, I might have known Neil was a Taurean. Like the world needs another Fox-style news channel right now to lower the journalistic bar further. Neil’s statement that the right are a silenced underdog is clearly nonsense – since when did the Right never have a voice? Apart from the fact that they are over represented in the form of our newspapers and tabloids, Right wing politics has been very, very vocal for at least the past decade if memory serves me well, particularly in the US. For all it’s many flaws I’ll still be using the Beeb, thanks.

  12. Thanks for letting me know what kind of channel it is going to be. I was wondering what the channel was about. Now I can hide it from my channels. I’m sick to the back teeth of the right-wingers fast pulling us into a dystopian nightmare. Much of their ‘news’ is often based on conspiracy propaganda in order to control people out of fear.

    I see channel 4 has commissioned a major documentary called ‘The Rise of the Anti-Vax movement,’ which states ‘Who are the people behind the international anti-Covid-vaccine movement and why are they doing it? This journey inside the astonishing world of the anti-vaxxers finds out.’ – That’s one piece of investigative journalism I think IS WORTH watching. I think it airs on Monday night. It’s a shame many news stations don’t take such forensic measures before airing their news pieces.

    • I try to read a variety of sources. The problem with only reading say left leading papers is that it would just endorse a view point and IMO make it difficult to work on critical thinking. It’s like computer algorithms, they want to get you to click and like things so they offer you items that fit with your profile. I started watching Andrew Neil on his Spectator TV you tube channel and it’s good to see someone asking pertinent questions. It looks like he’s now moving aside for the younger journalist to present.

      • Oh I agree we certainly need a sort of middle information spectrum that has its feet on both the right and left leanings. The reason the far-right have exploded is because the left has let us down and overlooked important factors. Cue an upswell of well-founded resentment that has birthed this crap-fest we are currently in. For the most part, I have actually switched off almost entirely from all the news. I’m sick to death of being updated with news of corruption, sex assaults, genocide, the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer (again), royal family meltdowns, etc. It’s makes you think the world is a very dangerous and unstable place. It feeds off peoples paranoia and fear. I don’t even think 90% of it is even educational, to be honest.

        • Someone shared Noam Chomsky’s ideas on manipulation: ”The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”
          Noam Chomsky, from “The Common Good”

          Then the challenge becomes how do we become more aware…

Leave a Reply to snew Cancel reply

%d bloggers like this: