New current affairs channel GB News on Wednesday announced it will launch on June 13, promising an alternative take to the BBC and other rivals.

Its chair Andrew Neil, formerly a BBC journalist and editor of The Sunday Times, has said the network is a "disrupter," aimed at people who find existing broadcasters too London-dominated, "woke" and middle-class.

The 24-hour channel's logo features the British national flag and it has recruited well-known presenters from the BBC and Sky News. 

Some, including members of Britain's main opposition Labour party, have compared the new channel to right-wing Fox News in the United States. But Neil insists it will comply with the UK broadcast regulator's rules on impartiality.

The launch announcement comes as the publicly-funded BBC is facing calls for reform, including from Neil, after revelations over how it obtained an explosive interview with Princess Diana in 1995.

An independent inquiry last week found that BBC executives knew interviewer Martin Bashir commissioned fake bank statements that falsely suggested Diana's closest aides were being paid by the security services to keep tabs on her.