Paw Patrol trends as Welsh-language kids’ show ‘scores higher viewership’ than GB News

News channel launched earlier this month, enjoying what presenter Andrew Neil has called a ‘rocky start’

The popular children’s animated series Paw Patrol has trended on social media after its Welsh-language version reached significantly more viewers than recent GB News segments.

GB News, the recently launched “right-of-centre” 24-hour news channel, debuted on 13 June with viewership ratings of 336,000, higher than rival channels such as Sky News and BBC News.

However, the numbers have since fallen drastically, with Thursday’s instalment of Great British Breakfast reportedly attracting 32,000 viewers and Andrew Neil’s flagship show getting just 31,000, per Media Monitoring Service figures.

Various Wales-focused news outlets reported that these numbers were substantially lower than the viewing figures for the Welsh-language version of Paw Patrol.

PatrolPawennau, as it is called, attracted more than five times as many viewers, with Thursday’s episode drawing an audience of 161,000, per S4C stats.

Other Welsh-language series, such as Pobol y Cwm, also managed to rise above GB News’s nadir, drawing a total of 44,000 viewers.

The inaugural weeks of GB News have been marred by some amount of criticism and technical malfunction; presenter Andrew Neil admitted on Thursday that it had enjoyed a “rocky start”.

Neil is currently set to leave the channel for a “few weeks”, and will return “before the summer is out”, with Colin Brazier taking over.