Murdoch to shut Talktv amid heavy losses
After media mogul pulls plug on Talktv, the upstart channel must consolidate its position, reports
RUPERT MURDOCH is taking Talktv off air to staunch heavy losses, weeks after Piers Morgan’s show retreated to Youtube.
Mr Murdoch’s News UK today confirmed that Talktv will shut down its terrestrial channel, and will move to streaming-only from early summer.
It comes after it struggled to attract audiences and was eclipsed by fellow opinion-led upstart broadcaster GB News. In a memo to staff seen by The
Telegraph, Scott Taunton, News UK’S head of broadcasting, said: “We now need to focus our investment on where the eyeballs are and where the revenues are in growth.
“In order to be successful, we need to prioritise being where the audiences are, rather than asking them to come to find us down the channel guide.”
News UK Broadcasting, Talktv’s parent company, made a loss of £34m in the year Talktv was launched. With programmes often attracting audiences in the low thousands, the picture is not thought to have improved despite changes to the presenting line-up.
Mr Taunton added that the move “made economic sense too” as traditional advertising revenues would never match the millions of pounds in costs of maintaining linear channel slots. The move comes just weeks after Piers Morgan announced he was leaving Talktv to put his show on Youtube.
The presenter branded his nightly slot on the channel a “straitjacket”, arguing he could reach a much larger audience online. While Mr Morgan continues to work with News UK on his Uncensored show, the decision raised questions about the channel’s future.
Talktv will now only be available on Youtube, Amazon Fire and connected TVS. News UK will also continue to broadcast radio brands such as Talkradio and Times Radio.
Mr Taunton said: “There is no doubt over Talk’s future as an audio and video channel, it just won’t be distributed on linear.”
‘The market opportunity for a Gb-centric free-to-air linear channel is not immense’
Rupert Murdoch’s attempt to regain a foothold in British television was as short-lived as it was noisy. Less than two years after its launch, the media mogul is pulling Talktv off the air and relegating it to streaming only.
The move signals the limit of the nonagenarian’s patience with the loss-making venture, which has proved too costly for even his empire to sustain. It also cements a win for GB News, the rival upstart which has also been grappling for space in the nascent UK market for opinion-led broadcasting. The question now is whether the victory will become a pyrrhic one.
As Ofcom tightens its scrutiny of GB News, losses mount and an election looms, the upstart broadcaster is facing its steepest challenges yet.
GB News has succeeded where Talktv failed in many ways. After an advertiser boycott overshadowed its debut, the channel has continued to grow its audiences and is now challenging the dominance of established broadcasters such as the BBC and Sky.
But expansion has come at a cost. Newly published accounts show GB News’s losses deepened last year as the channel splashed out on high-profile presenters such as Sir Jacob Reesmogg. Bosses acknowledge that progress has been more difficult and taken longer than expected.
For Talktv, the writing was on the wall after Piers Morgan, by far the channel’s most popular presenter, last month announced he was ditching his nightly slot to pursue his Uncensored show on Youtube.
Morgan branded his Talktv show a “straitjacket”, arguing he would have greater freedom and reach larger audiences online.
In a memo to staff yesterday, News UK’S head of broadcasting Scott Taunton acknowledged that traditional TV had not paid off. He said: “We need to prioritise being where the audiences are, rather than asking them to come to find us down the channel guide.”
By contrast, GB News appears to have won over viewers. The channel reached an average of 2.7m people each month last year, according to figures from ratings agency Barb, up from 2.3m in 2022. On Monday, it beat Sky News across the entire day.
The channel has outlined ambitions to become the UK’S largest news channel by 2028 – something chief executive Angelos Frangopoulos has internally branded a “big hairy audacious goal”.
Rising viewing figures are delivering financial benefits. While some brands continue to shun the controversial channel over the indulgence of conspiracy theories by some of its presenters, its established status and growing audience means it can no longer simply be ignored.
Advertising revenues rose 44pc from £2.9m to £4.2m in the year to the end of May, while overall turnover almost doubled to £6.7m.
But at the same time, GB News’s costs are mounting. Losses ballooned to £42.4m last year as the channel splashed out on high-profile presenters such as Nigel Farage and Rees-mogg, who both joined last January. Headcount rose by more than two thirds, pushing the company’s wage bill up from £12.7m to £21.2m.
Industry observers point out that losses are common in start-ups. But rolling news is expensive, and there are fundamental questions about whether GB News can ever generate enough revenues to turn a profit.
“At the end of the day, this is a free-to-air basic TV channel, so you’re really dependent on advertising,” says media analyst Alex Degroote.
“I would have thought that the market opportunity for a Gb-centric free-to-air linear channel is not immense. This is not a big market.”
Bosses are looking at ways to generate new sources of revenue. The broadcaster last year rolled out a membership scheme that offers exclusive commentary and analysis to subscribers. It has also expanded into the US and stepped up the number of live events hosted by presenters such as Farage. Alternatively, GB News may be forced to cut costs. In a note to staff
this week, seen by The Telegraph, Frangopoulos acknowledged there were “challenges ahead”, adding that the channel needed to find “smarter routes to sustainability and profit”.
Degroote adds: “Linear telly is tough and news is tough, so if you put the two together it’s quite hard to make money out of it.”
For now, GB News can rely on its deep-pocketed shareholders – hedge fund tycoon Sir Paul Marshall and Dubai-based investment firm Legatum. Filings show money owed to All Perspectives, the shareholders’ parent company, almost doubled last year to £83.8m.
The Telegraph has learnt that GB News recently received a further cash injection from investors.
Sources close to one shareholder suggest the owners might be emboldened by the demise of Talktv. Sir Paul may also approach the venture with renewed tenacity if his attempted bid for The Telegraph ends in failure.
One veteran TV executive says it will take a “very long time indeed” to turn a profit, but that shareholders are likely to be on board. The source added: “If I were Paul Marshall I’d say, ‘Yes, I believe in this philosophically, we can afford to do it and it’s taking on the established beasts, bring it on’.”
Ultimately, GB News could look for external sources of investment. However, shareholders are not thought to be keen to sell at this stage and the company has rebuffed several approaches from Murdoch.
In the short term, though, GB News is gearing up for a battle on a different front. After regulators came under fire for a hands-off approach, the channel is coming under increased scrutiny from Ofcom.
It this week ruled that misogynistic on-air comments made by Laurence Fox were in breach of the broadcasting code. Fox has since been sacked, while in a note to staff yesterday, GB News confirmed that Dan Wootton was “no longer employed” by the company. However, the watchdog warned it had “significant concerns” about editorial control at the channel. The regulator has 13 other ongoing investigations into the broadcaster over issues including impartiality and the use of sitting politicians as presenters.
Yet controversy is the lifeblood of GB News, which was launched with the stated aim of shaking up the status quo. Insiders privately joke that Ofcom is saving the channel vast sums in marketing costs.
In comments that drew criticism across the industry, Ofcom boss Melanie Dawes recently suggested that GB News is held to lower standards on impartiality as its audiences are far smaller than its established rivals.
But growing frustration among executives at rivals such as ITV and Channel 4 is increasing pressure on Ofcom to crack down.
Moreover, GB News is gearing up for perhaps the most critical period in its short history as elections loom in both the UK and US. The broadcaster has branded itself the “election channel” and its coverage will be closely watched, especially given its use of politicians as presenters.
“I think the spotlight will shine more closely on GB News and depending on how they handle it they’ll probably have more scrapes with Ofcom,” says the executive.
This raises the prospect that the regulator could begin to issue fines – a move that would affect GB News’s bottom line as well as clipping its wings. Industry observers are quick to emphasise GB News’s willingness to fight back against Ofcom, suggesting that the channel could even take the regulator to court.
Still, as the upstart broadcaster looks to usher in a new era of sustainable growth, it may need to prove it is growing up. “They’ve done very well over the last three years,” says the industry source. “They now just need to consolidate rather than irritate.”