The regulator blames an administrative error. The data appeared only after GB News asked for it, and it lands in the middle of a government consultation on which news sources social media should be made to promote.
Ofcom’s own news consumption survey found that GB News viewers rate their channel more highly for trust than BBC viewers rate theirs. The regulator left the figures out of the report it published on 15 September. They turned up online afterwards, once GB News asked for them.
The figures arrive against the backdrop of a long and unusually contentious regulatory relationship between Ofcom and GB News. Among GB News viewers, 74 per cent consider it trustworthy. Among Sky News viewers, 71 per cent say the same of Sky. Among BBC viewers, 66 per cent say it of the BBC. On impartiality, GB News and Sky both score 63 per cent with their own audiences. The BBC scores 53 per cent. Seventy two per cent of GB News viewers say it offers a broad range of views.
The comparison is between each channel’s own audience, not a head to head verdict from the public at large. Ofcom asked viewers how they rate what they already watch. GB News scores higher among its own audience than the BBC does among its, on each measure where both are reported.
Asked about the omission, an Ofcom spokesman said: “An administrative error led to a short delay in publishing the underlying data for this year’s report, which we corrected as soon as we became aware.
“More broadly, not all of the vast amounts of data we produce can be included in the main report, which focused on our key findings.”
A GB News spokesman said: “These figures prove why GB News is Britain’s undisputed number one news channel.
“Our viewers and listeners trust us to provide them with news, and our bold and fearless journalism is connecting with communities everywhere.”
The material that did not make it into the main report concerned a broadcaster Ofcom has repeatedly investigated and sanctioned, and which successfully challenged two of the regulator’s breach decisions in the High Court.
Timing matters here. In June, ministers published a green paper, Watch this Space: A new strategic direction for UK media, consulting on proposals to require social media companies and video sharing platforms to make news from public service media prominent and easy to find. The BBC, ITV, STV, Channel 4, S4C and Channel 5 are the named public service broadcasters. Ministers also want to extend the same treatment to “other trustworthy providers”.
How a broadcaster or a newspaper would qualify as trustworthy has not been explained. The government’s own consultation paper states that public service broadcasters remain among the most trusted news sources. Ofcom’s underlying audience ratings add a complication to that picture: among their own viewers, GB News scores more highly for trust than the BBC does among its viewers. The consultation closed on 31 August.
The figures also land as audiences continue to move online, while ministers consider giving public service media greater prominence there. Social media is now the main way to get news for three quarters of 16 to 24 year olds, according to Ofcom research cited by the government.
GB News has argued it should be counted as public service media and allowed to compete for public funding rather than have taxpayer money channelled automatically to the BBC. In a submission to ministers earlier this year, it made that case directly. Barb, the official ratings agency, has it as the most watched non public service broadcaster in the year to date, with an average daily audience of just under 90,000.
Claire Bullivant, CEO of Great British PAC, said:
“These figures are deeply embarrassing for both Ofcom and the BBC. After years in which GB News has faced relentless regulatory scrutiny, Ofcom somehow managed to leave out figures showing that GB News viewers rate their channel more highly for trust and impartiality than BBC viewers rate theirs.
“Ofcom calls it an administrative error. People are entitled to ask how such politically sensitive figures were missed, and why it took GB News asking for them before they appeared.
“The bigger issue is what happens next. This Labour Government is considering giving ‘trusted’ news providers privileged prominence online. But who gets to decide what ‘trusted’ means? Ofcom? Ministers? The same establishment institutions that have spent years lecturing the public about misinformation and impartiality?
“The BBC no longer has an automatic right to be treated as the gold standard of British journalism, and GB News should not be treated as somehow less legitimate simply because it challenges the prevailing establishment consensus.
“We need more competing voices, not an approved list of news organisations effectively blessed by the state. The British public are perfectly capable of deciding which journalists and broadcasters they trust. Ofcom should regulate fairly and transparently, not become an arbiter of which opinions and news organisations deserve to be heard.”
The long dispute between the channel and its regulator remains unresolved. Ofcom fined GB News £100,000 in October 2024 over a programme featuring Rishi Sunak while he was prime minister. It has censured the broadcaster over conspiracy theories and is investigating remarks by a guest who linked Pride with paedophilia and bestiality. In February 2025 the High Court quashed two Ofcom decisions on programmes presented by Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, the first time the regulator had lost such a challenge. Ofcom later dropped related investigations.
Separately, Ofcom has just confirmed new measures governing how online platforms should respond during a crisis. On 9 June it confirmed two measures for its Online Safety Act codes of practice. Platforms in scope must have a crisis protocol ready to apply, and certain large platforms must maintain a dedicated channel through which law enforcement can reach them during a crisis.
Ofcom defines the crisis as an “extraordinary situation in which there is a serious threat to public safety in the United Kingdom”. The measures were laid before Parliament on 18 June and, subject to that process completing, apply from this autumn.
On paper the platforms decide for themselves whether a crisis is under way, and Ofcom cannot declare an emergency. In practice Ofcom writes the definition, regulates the companies, judges whether they have complied and can contact them individually when it sees risk emerging.
It did exactly that during the unrest in Belfast in June, following a serious knife attack in the city. “We are already contacting individual providers where we believe there are specific risks around the presence of illegal content relating to the civil unrest,” Ofcom wrote in an open letter to service providers, signed by its group director for online safety, Oliver Griffiths.
The letter also states that Ofcom’s job is to ensure platforms have appropriate measures in place “rather than tell platforms which specific posts or accounts to take down”, and that its codes recognise the right to freedom of expression and the right to peaceful protest.
The letter sets out the general basis for those contacts. No details of the individual exchanges have been published: which platforms Ofcom approached during the Belfast disorder, what it asked of them, and what followed.
Ofcom says the missing data was an administrative error. But as government and regulators take a growing role in deciding how information is treated and which news is made easier to find online, the figures leave one question hanging: who gets to define trust?
