Bosses at GB News have been left red-faced after viewing figures for its alleged record-breaking New Year’s Eve coverage were revised down significantly.
Broadcast data body Barb initially gave broadcasters data showing the channel had surpassed one million viewers at once for the first time just after midnight on New Year’s Day.
But it later said there had been an error and viewers to other channels had been misattributed to GB News.
Barb has now said GB News averaged 33,000 viewers to its New Year’s Eve fireworks coverage – around seven per cent of the initial total.
Speaking to the Press Gazette, a Barb spokesperson said: “The New Year’s Eve Fireworks were broadcast across several channels with very similar audio feeds.
“Barb’s ability to report which channel is being viewed relies partly on matching the audio output from TV sets to a channel.
“In this instance, our audio-matching process has incorrectly attributed some viewing of the New Year’s Eve Fireworks to GB News that should have been attributed to BBC One and other channels.
“We are investigating the issue and will issue amended viewing data as soon as possible.”
Related: Fujitsi urged to make £10m ‘initial contribution’ towards Horizon compensation