GB News Hit By Latest Ofcom Breach Over Campaign To Save Britain From Becoming Cashless Society, With Five ‘Don’t Kill Cash’ Investigations Still Open

deadline.com:

GB News has been hit with its first Ofcom breach over the network’s Don’t Kill Cash campaign and more could be incoming. The regulator this morning said GB News had broken two parts of its code over the campaign lobbying politicians to stop Britain from moving away from being a cashless society.

Ofcom swiftly opened an investigation into an episode of GB News’ The Live Desk that mentioned the campaign in its infancy in July and five more probes into Don’t Kill Cash’s promotion remain open.

While taking into account that “broadcasters are of course free to cover issues such as the use of cash in society in their programmes in various ways,” Ofcom said GB News had broken rules 5.4 and 5.5 of its code, which “included expressions of the views and opinions of the licensee on a matter of political controversy and a matter relating to current public policy, and did not preserve due impartiality on it.” The campaign’s stated aim is to “call on the Government to introduce legislation to protect the status of cash as legal tender and as a widely accepted means of payment in the UK until at least 2050.” GB News stresses that old people are placed at a disadvantage by a cashless society and an alternative is required.

Ofcom said it received complaints in the first two weeks of July when 40 programs contained references to the campaign. It identified numerous promotions of the Campaign in GB News’ programs in the first week including regular calls to viewers to support a petition.