Goodbye Specsavers! Customers to boycott glasses shop after company pulls GB News adverts

Andrew Neil says GB News is ‘proud to be British’

Former BBC broadcaster Andrew Neil launched his new GB News less than a week ago, but there has already been controversy surrounding the channel. Ikea, Kopparburg and Octopus Energy have been among the brands to pull out of advertising on the news channel, by saying they were not aware their adverts were being used. Now Specsavers is the latest company to also pull its adverts, prompting furious GB News fans to share their anger on social media.

Former Brexit Party MEP Christina Jordan tweeted: “After over 20 years, it will be sad to say goodbye to you Specsavers.

“Extremely disappointing to see you throw yourself in with this lot.

“Thanks for the customer service and good luck with your new bedfellows.”

Another person warned Specsavers may lose more customers following the decision.

Customers to boycott glasses shop after company pulls GB News adverts (Image: TWITTER/GETTY)

They wrote on Twitter: “I’ve been getting my glasses at Specsavers for 10 years for reading.

“No more going there after Specsavers jumping on the bandwagon with GB News.

“You will lose thousands of customers over this.

“All my followers use Specsavers go somewhere else like me.”

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Andrew Neil’s GB News was launched on Sunday (Image: GB NEWS)

A third quipped: “Should’ve gone to Vision Express…..”

Former MEP Martin Daubney praised people for “turning their back” on the company following their boycott.

He said: “Very heartening to see punters voting with their wallets & turning their backs on cancel culture brands like Specsavers.

“Virtue signalling brands deserve to pay a price.”

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GB News peaked in its opening minutes on Sunday with 336,000 viewers (Image: GB NEWS)

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Ikea said it had “not knowingly” advertised on GB News.

Kopparberg said its ads had been suspended “pending further review of its content”.

Vodafone, Specsavers, LV, Bosch, Moneysupermarket and Pinterest also pulled their advertisements on Wednesday.

Find a FULL LIST of every business that pulled out of GB News…

Specsavers has not yet issued an official comment, but the company was added to a list of brands who have withdrawn their advertising on the campaign group “Boycott GB News'” website.

Earlier this week, Ikea said it had “not knowingly” advertised on GB News.

The Swedish furniture company said in a statement: “We are in the process of investigating how this may have occurred to ensure it won’t happen again in future, and have suspended paid display advertising in the meantime.”

Kopparberg also issued a statement after realising its advert was broadcast on the channel “without knowledge or consent”.

Ikea said it had “not knowingly” advertised on GB News (Image: GETTY)

The popular Swedish beer brand said on Twitter: “We want to make it clear to everyone that our ad ran on this channel without our knowledge or consent.

“Kopparberg is a drink for everyone and we have immediately suspended our ads from this channel pending further review of its content.”

And Octopus Energy said it would only advertise with the channel if it was “genuinely balanced”.

It comes after Mr Neil warned about “cancel culture” as he opened his first show with a monologue explaining the ways the channel would be different from other news outlets.

He said: “We will puncture the pomposity of our elites in politics, business, media and academia, and expose their growing promotion of cancel culture for the threat to free speech and democracy that it is.

Kopparburg said its advert was broadcast on the channel “without knowledge or consent” (Image: GETTY)

“We are proud to be British – the clue is in the name – and while we will never hold back from covering our country’s many flaws and problems, we will not come at every story with the conviction that Britain is always at fault.

“We won’t forget what the ‘B’ stands for in our title.”

TV industry magazine Broadcast reported this week that GB News peaked in its opening minutes on Sunday with 336,000 viewers.

This outperformed the 100,000 viewers who watched BBC News across the hour and the 46,000 who tuned into Sky News.

Express.co.uk has contacted Specsavers for a comment.