TalkTV, the online channel owned by Rupert Murdoch’s news empire, breached impartiality rules in a show that repeatedly accused the government of cancelling local elections out of fear of Reform UK.
The media regulator, Ofcom, issued the rare ruling in relation to a show hosted by Kevin O’Sullivan, in which he repeatedly said some local elections were being scrapped where ministers feared Nigel Farage’s party would win.
The programme featured similar accusations from the broadcaster’s international editor, Isabel Oakeshott. It also featured a clip from Farage’s YouTube channel, in which he repeated the accusation that ministers were “terrified of the rise of Reform”.
On a handover to the next programme, the presenter Ash Gould described the government’s proposal as “Saddam Hussein, Putin sort of territory”.
Ofcom has ruled on very few breaches of impartiality rules in recent years, instead talking up free speech and saying broadcasters can be balanced across a series of programmes.
However, the regulator concluded there had not been a proper reflection of the government’s position on O’Sullivan’s show.
When local election postponements were announced, ministers said they were in areas facing a rearrangement of local government, meaning holding elections would be “an expensive and irresponsible waste of taxpayers’ money”.
The presenter repeatedly alleged the anti-Reform motivations of the government. “Reform, quite rightly, fancied their chances and Labour knew that they were doomed,” he said. “Guess what? They’ve cancelled 13 of them. If there’s one thing lefties hate, it’s democracy.”
He later said: “The ones where Reform UK were tipped to do particularly well, they’re the ones that have gone. What a shame.” Oakeshott said she was “sure it is because of the rise of the Reform party, which today once again came the top of a new set of polls”.
News UK attempted to argue that O’Sullivan had reflected the government position in his own provocative style, when he said ministers had cited “some old drivel about ‘all the borders are changing so we’ll, we’ll have to do these later’” and “some old drivel about the border lines of constituencies changing and all that”. This was rejected by Ofcom.
News UK also argued viewers knew what to expect from O’Sullivan, saying he characterised himself as “an unambiguously acerbic and opinionated middle-aged man”.
In a statement, News UK said: “Talk takes its obligations under section five of the code [covering due impartiality] extremely seriously, and recognises the importance in bringing its audience accurate and impartial news and a range of voices and perspectives on issues of debate. However, on this occasion we, unusually, fell short of our own and Ofcom’s expectations.”
Talk, owned by News UK, the publisher of the Times and the Sun, launched in 2022. It became an online-only service in 2024 as it struggled to match the growth of its rightwing rival GB News.
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