The network has been created to rival British news and current affairs channels, including the BBC and Sky. Fans of the channel took to Twitter to hail GB News and warn the BBC of its competition.

One social media user posted: “The BBC is a joke. Fully here to give GB News a shot and see what it’s got to offer, but I’m obviously going to comment when they say one thing and do another.”

Another Twitter user said: “How refreshing to listen to Andrew Neil and the rest of the GB news team, looking forward to tuning into the channel and no longer having the same old dross available from the BBC and ITV.”

A third person wrote: “I think GB news IS a risk to the BBC.

“I very much hope it will be straw that ends the licence fee forever.”

READ MORE: BBC accused of attempting to ‘damage’ GB News launch day

In what appeared to be a dig towards the BBC, Mr Neil said: “We won’t forget what the B stands for in our title.”

He added: “We are proud to be British. The clue is in the name.

“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, usually to blame when things go wrong, generally useless.”

Mr Neil explained that the channel will not be “another echo chamber for the metropolitan mind-set that already dominates so much of the media”.

GB News is the first new British news network in 24 years, since BBC News 24 launched in 1997.