GB News has announced a round of redundancies with 40 jobs set to be lost at the broadcaster amid mounting losses, it’s reported.
The job cuts come after the channel posted a pre-tax operating loss of £42.4m for the year to the end of May, 2023, up from £30.7m 12 months.
GB News chief executive Angelos Frangopoulos announced the redundancy round at a town hall on Friday afternoon, according to Press Gazette.
The channel is offering up to two months’ salary and a possible payment in lieu of notice to workers who take voluntary redundancy, it’s reported.
One worker at the channel told Press Gazette there was “a real ‘last days of Saigon’ vibe in the office right now”.
The cutbacks represent around 14 per cent of GB News’s workforce if current numbers are the same as last May, 2023 when the broadcaster’s headcount had ballooned to 295 compared to 175 in May, 2022.
Speaking to MPs on the Lords Communications and Digital Committee last month, Mr Frangopoulos said: “We’re very confident about the future of being self-sufficient financially, but we have a lot of work to do.”
He added: “We at the very outset were absolutely clear we are a business and management is under significant pressure to find a way forward for a business.
“Now the way forward for any media business is about audience. You need to be able to connect with, and build, an audience. So we’re doing well on that front.”
Despite almost doubling, the company’s revenue was still considerably lower than its losses, reaching £6.7m in the most recent set of financial figures.
“The advertising sector though… is actually having many, many challenges so we are looking at different ways of diversifying that income.”
GB News said that its audience figures had ballooned, especially online where page fields increased more than five-fold.
It was money from the company’s owner, All Perspectives Limited backed by, among others, billionaire hedge fund investor Sir Paul Marshall.
Last year, GB News got £41m from the parent company, taking the total it now owes it to £83.8m.
“The company has strong support from its investors and the directors have no reason to believe that the level of these contributions might vary to a significant degree or be recalled before the group has the resources to repay the investment,” GB News said in accounts filed to Companies House.
The business said that it had an average of 295 monthly employees during the year, with its wage, social security and pension costs reaching £21.2m, or around £72,000 per head.
GB News has faced an advertiser boycott after launching in August, 2021.
It has also launched a paid membership scheme, offering access to paywalled content and in-person events with the GB News presenters.
