I donāt watch a lot of mainstream TV, so awards for popularity donāt mean much to me as I donāt recognise most of the shows and much of celebrity culture. However, the history of the awards does interest me. TRIC was set up āto promote goodwill in the television and radio industriesā. I donāt see a lot of goodwill in what GB News does in promoting the divisive politics of the Reform Party.
Itās only since 2019 that the awards have been decided by a public vote from a list of predetermined nominations within various categories.
At the first awards lunch held at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London in 1969, three awards were presented to Val Doonican, Kenneth Horne and The Forsyte Saga. How times change.
Itās interesting to look back at previous awards to get a feel for what wins and for what. For example, in 2015, the winner of the best Factual category was The Great British Bake Off - up against Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs and the The Mekong River with Sue Perkins.
Iām not going to trawl all the archives to see what factual programmes were broadcast across all channels but it would have been a preceding year full of national and international events like any other to make factual programmes about.
A quick look at what was on BBC Horizon: Ebola: The Search for a Cure; How to Feed the Planet (that was the late Dr Michael Mosely); Inside the Dark Web looking at hackers and the scientists whose technology is fighting against Internet surveillance. Similarly, BBC Panorama: Stolen Childhoods: The Grooming Scandal; When the Caring Stops ā An undercover investigation that exposed appalling neglect and poor treatment of elderly residents inside care homes; Workers on the Breadline ā examining how millions of British workers were earning too little to live on, relying on government benefit top-ups.
Thatās just a few. Nevertheless, the best "Factual" programme as voted for by the industry was about hobbyists making bread and cake. The best "Reality" programme was Strictly Come Dancing. Surely those were and are celebrity-driven entertainment?
Best News Programme wasnāt introduced as a category until 2021. The shortlist was BBC Breakfast, Good Morning Britain and Sky News - won by Good Morning Britain.
GB News was launched in June 2021.
Press Gazette reported this year that GB News beats Sky News on average viewership but not on total reach or digital followings. It says this means that the channel is likely to have more live TV viewers watching at any time than its more established rivals but has a lower total weekly reach than the BBC News Channel and Sky News. It suggests it is watched consistently by a smaller but more loyal audience - which is evidenced by some of the posts here.
GB News said it had 87,700 average viewers between 6am and 2am in December 2025 - which isnāt a huge amount for any channel from a population of 70 million people.
pressgazette.co.uk/media-audience-and-business-data/media_metrics/gb-news-viewing-figures-2025-sky-bbc/
2025 polling suggested that GB News is the least trusted of the five main news broadcasters in Britain. While it was the only one with a negative net trust (-15), weekly visits by GB News viewers exceeded those visiting Channel 4 News.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GB_News#cite_note-:4-15
Itās a very strange dichotomy - an award winning news programme on the least trusted news channel. It doesnāt make sense to me to go to an untrustworthy channel for news at any time of day.
I rail at some BBC presenters for their obvious bias. I played the āwhat does AI say about me on Gransnetā game yesterday. It said I am a sharp critic of mainstream media figures like Chris Mason and Laura Kuenssberg. This it true (and add Fiona Bruce to those two) but theirs is commentary and opinion on the news not the news itself. I still prefer the BBC for news coverage presented by Clive Myrie, Sophie Raworth, Reeta Chakrabarti, Victoria Derbyshire, Faisal Islam, Matthew Amroliwala, Christian Frasier etc. I simply donāt understand how Farage could be voted Best News Presenter two years running in 2023 and 2024 when we have professionals of this quality.