A proposed new TV news channel from Rupert Murdoch has been granted a licence to broadcast in the UK by Ofcom.
The new service - provisionally titled 'News UK TV' - is being earmarked for a launch in early 2021 and aims to take on Murdoch's former station Sky News and the BBC's rolling news channel BBC News.
The channel is likely to be beaten to the air by GB News, a new 24-hour station overseen by political heavyweight Andrew Neil that plans to adopt the US approach of presenter-led programming rather than the UK's established rolling news format.
The News UK project is said to be more geared towards an online presence but is expected to operate on free-to-air television in some form, most likely as a limited evening programming block running for four to five hours.
According to The Guardian, the schedule of the station will include an evening politics show, a political debate show and an evening bulletin.
The flagship programme has the working title The Smart Cast and will have a "big-name host" who will broadcast from a new custom studio being built at News UK's London HQ.
GB News and News UK TV will represent the first launches of major TV news networks in the UK since the now-defunct ITV News Channel launched in August 2000.
Neil Wilkes
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