BBC loses Great British Bake Off

Well it could be a bad thing for Love Productions as they could have Sewing Bee, Allotment Challenge etc. axed by the BBC now and cannot see any other broadcaster picking them up.



Not sure if it was created especially for him, it was announced it was happening then he guest hosted Have I Got News for You when he said his career was slowing down after the axing of Play Your Cards Right & Price is Right by ITV when he suddenly became the host. He said himself when approached to do it he thought it would be a show like the Generation Game with him being involved in the dance and never thought it would be a serious dancing show and he even stated he was unsure as he never presented before but he decided to do it and never believed it would become so successful.



You can add
Jonathan Ross
Michael Parkinson
Steve Rider

Ant & Dec are exceptions to the rule as they were lesser known and SM:TV & CD:UK developed them and Bruce Forsyth & Des O'Connor were already well established broadcasters actually starting on ITV and moving to the BBC.

Twitter's reaction probably best summed up by Mark Gatiss....



It's all a bit ironic considering Jay Hunt just the other week was expressing her disappointment at the team behind Black Mirror for taking the show to the highest bidder after Channel 4 had taken a chance on it and nurtured into a global hit.

Channel four will inevitably try sexing it up by trying to put their own "edge" on it...thus completely missing the point of why it's the biggest show on telly in the first place.

It is a show that wouldn't have been out of place launching on C4 - after all it was a BBC2 show and historically there is alot of similarities between the two. Even if half the viewers deserted it it would still easily be C4's most popular show.

However really bad form from Love Productions - it is almost unheard of for a continuing original show to be effectively poached by another broadcaster, rather than being picked up once axed.

Though the same happened to The Voice as well.

The Voice was justified though, because ITV bought the format owner!

Though ITV owned companies have made (and continue to make) plenty for the BBC. It's not like ITV's ever tried to poach Eggheads, for example!

Broadcasts original story about their being difficulties with the negotiations over a new deal said that one of the issues was that it was originally commissioned by the BBC documentaries department with a documentary level budget not an entertainment one. Love productions wanted it commissioned with an entertainment budget / commissioning fee.


Based on that Brodcast report, the other reports today and the BBC statement it seems that it was very much about money. Despite the BBC trying to make savings I doubt the executives were offering Love less, it was probably a - relatively - modest increase but Love wanted more and now they have it. Perhaps they know Mel, Sue, Mary and Paul will agree to stay, if they don't they've put a risk a huge part of its success to gain the increased fee.

Despite apparently exclusive negotiations with the BBC they manage to do a deal with C4 in the space of a day. Strange that.

It's somewhat ironic that C4 were one of the broadcasters to turn down Bake Off before the BBC commissioned it.

Quite surprised C4 rushed the announcement - would have been better for them to let ITV get slagged off a bit longer before playing the saviour card later in the week.

BBC News just mentioned Bake Off going to Channel 4 at the end and did a report in the report they said it joins The Voice moving to ITV, F1 which moved to Channel 4 and TOP GEAR which moved to Amazon. Sorry but Top Gear still remains on the BBC albeit with a different presenting lineup, the star presenter was sacked and left to Amazon and took his 2 mates and the producer with him.

Come on BBC this is your own channel you should know what your talking about, lazy journalism at it's finest.

Sad to see the show leaving the BBC. The viewers will lose out as there won't be a full series until 2018. Jay Hunt has been known for a "hands on" approach to commissioning so are C4 going to resist the temptation to tinker with the format?

It's a very odd set of circumstances, especially considering how vocal some of the four out of Mel, Sue, Paul and Mary have been about it being right that it's on the BBC - not that long ago Paul Hollywood said, to great applause, that they all wanted the show on the BBC. If they can get all four of them back next year I'll be slightly surprised, as whenever a show moves channel the new broadcaster always changes something to make their mark, and whilst a judge on the Voice etc is interchangeable, it'll be much harder for Channel 4 to swap out Mel and Sue or Mary and Paul for other people. I suspect 'An Extra Slice' will get revamped at the very least if it survives, in the same way that Big Brother's Little Brother became Bit on the Side when it moved to Channel 5.



As unlikely as it is that the BBC would cancel something out of spite, I think there is a valid point in there somewhere, about how the BBC has been good to Love Productions over the past few years with the shows they've commissioned from them.

The Last Leg Extra Dough will probably air straight after the main show on Channel 4. I dont think it will work anywhere else.