THE FAILING BBC News Channel has lost 36% of its viewers since 2012, Politicalite can reveal.
The 24-hour news channel may want to change its slogan from Britain’s ‘Most Watched’ to Britain’s ‘Most Abandoned” news channel as data shows the publicly funded outlet has LOST a big chunk of its viewers.
According to data from Statisa, the channel has lost a big chunk of its viewers.
BBC News Channel, originally called BBC News 24 was launched in November 1997 and was available to digital terrestrial, satellite and cable television subscribers and Rupert Murdoch even tried to ‘shut it down.’
When it was launched, Rupert Murdoch’s Sky objected to the breaking of his monopoly and even went to the, yes – the European Courts to try to ‘shut down’ the channel.
Sky claimed that cable operators had been forced to carry News 24 in favour of Sky News, but the EU ruled against poor old Murdoch and in September 1999 the EU said that the publicly funded channel was NOT unfair and illegal under EU law.
The Commission ruled that the licence fee should be considered state aid but that such aid was justified due to the public service remit of the BBC and that it did not exceed actual costs.
The channel beams live from the BBC’s multi-million newsroom in Broadcasting House.
In 2017, it was named the RTS News Channel of the Year.