IDS says a change in ownership may lead to ‘material uncertainty’ over the company’s future

Royal Mail’s owner has warned that a potential £3.5bn bid by the Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský could create risk around the company’s finances.

The warning came as the industry regulator Ofcom announced that it had opened an investigation into the parent group, International Distributions Services (IDS), for failing to meet its annual delivery targets for the second year in a row. Last year, Ofcom fined the company £5.6m for failing to meet its first-class and second-class delivery targets in 2022-23.

PM gives statement following report that found ‘subtle, pervasive and chilling’ cover-up by NHS and government

GB News has described the Ofcom ruling against it today (see 10.51am and 11.01am) as an “alarming development” that should “terrify” anyone who believes in a free media. Here is its response to the judgment in full.

Ofcom’s finding against GB News today is an alarming development in its attempt to silence us by standing in the way of a forum that allows the public to question politicians directly.

The regulator’s threat to punish a news organisation with sanctions for enabling people to challenge their own prime minister strikes at the heart of democracy at a time when it could not be more vital.

In considering whether the programme was duly impartial, we took into account a range of factors, such as: the audience’s questions to the prime minister; the prime minister’s responses; the presenter’s contribution; and whether due impartiality was preserved through clearly linked and timely programmes. Our investigation found, in summary, that:

-while some of the audience’s questions provided some challenge to, and criticism of, the government’s policies and performance, audience members were not able to challenge the prime minister’s responses and the presenter did not do this to any meaningful extent;

Given the very high compliance risks this programme presented, we found GB News’s approach to compliance to be wholly insufficient, and consider it could have, and should have, taken additional steps to mitigate these risks.

We found that an appropriately wide range of significant viewpoints were not presented and given due weight in the People’s Forum: The Prime Minister, nor was due impartiality preserved through clearly linked and timely programmes. As a result, we consider that the prime minister had a mostly uncontested platform to promote the policies and performance of his government in a period preceding a UK general election.

Regulator says channel breached rules by failing to sufficiently challenge Rishi Sunak’s views in February broadcast

Ofcom is considering a statutory sanction against GB News over “serious and repeated” breaches of British television laws relating to the channel’s lack of impartiality.

The media regulator said the channel breached regulations by allowing the Conservative prime minister, Rishi Sunak, to be interviewed on air without sufficient challenge to his views.

Audience members were not able to challenge the prime minister’s responses and the presenter Stephen Dixon – a former Sky News host – did not push back to any “meaningful extent”.

The prime minister was able to set out future policies he planned to implement if re-elected. Neither the audience nor the presenter challenged or otherwise referred to significant alternative views on these.

Sunak criticised aspects of Labour’s policies and performance – but neither Labour’s views or positions on those issues were included in the programme.

GB News did not include a reference in the programme to an agreed future programme in which a wide range of significant views on the major matter would be given due weight.