BBC loses Great British Bake Off

Yes, it's considered incredibly poor form to develop a programme on one channel then take it elsewhere in this manner. It has especially been an unwritten rule at ITV which is why you never saw The Royle Family or Countdown move across to ITV in their heyday.

The Voice is different as it wasn't an ITV Studios production at the time the BBC commissioned it.

It's a brave or foolish decision on Love Productions' part. I say the latter - any channel would think twice about commissioning a new format, if the chances are they'd end up losing it to the competition if it became a success.

No I'm not. It's just that I've trusted Channel 4 so much to believe this. ITV is predictable, it would still be a complete nightmare because ITV would have got their hands all over it anyway and make it even more predictable with the same old presenters and a overload of drama. I can't even trust if there will or will not be comedy, because a lot of it may become manipulative, therefore I do get that split by ITV. You might think I'm going on some propaganda. But with the lack of Paralympics coverage by the BBC, when they had the rights, but the new pride Channel 4 gave to Paralympics, I still bloody trust Channel 4 enough to still keep the viewers interested in Bake Off. I feel like the BBC make the wrong decisions even more than Channel 4. They've even managed to get a broadcaster with another proper charity as well, so they can still make an annual celebrity series like with Comic Relief and Sport Relief. I wouldn't expect more than five minutes with Text Santa.

Or just a mistake?

https://twitter.com/DavidSillitoBBC/status/775454628246937601

I've tried to embed the above but it's not working.

Mortifying evening. Said Top Gear not (as I wrote) Top Gear 'team' had left BBC. Now going to hide under a stone.

— David Sillito BBC (@DavidSillitoBBC) September 12, 2016

No wonder they declined if that it the case, Really is pure greed from the production company.

Love Productions are beneath contempt. I have been offered MILLIONS to take The Sausage Sandwich game to Absolute but loyalty is paramount.

— Danny Baker (@prodnose) September 12, 2016

I feel sorry for the @BBCOne they invested years in making Bake off popular and the greedy disloyal format owner has sold it to Ch4

— Lord Sugar (@Lord_Sugar) September 12, 2016

You'd be forgiven for thinking they were a subsidiary of News Corp. It's one thing to demand an unnecessary price hike - let alone quadruple - from the money-deprived BBC. It's another to do it after they've been kind enough to nurture the programme and let it grow into the phenomenon that it became. I hope this decision comes to bite Love Productions on the arse.

I am curious as to why ITV never ended up with it, considering their previous attempts at similar shows in the past. Maybe they thought £25m was just as ridiculous?

I don't know how you can possibly think that, after all it was only a few hours ago Love said it wasn't about the money:


So it's not about the money- except for the bit just afterwards where they say that it is.

They just happen to have quadrupled the commissioning fee by accident in finding the 'best home' for the show.

The Telegraph say ITV were offering / had offered more. If you're quadrupling the fee a broadcaster pays for your show you might as well not push it any more by going to a broadcaster who is more likely to interfere with the winning format.

That'd be the same BBC that had built up Paralympics coverage as a greater level of footage had become available to it from the host broadcasters. The way you talk about it is as if pre C4 the Paralympics had the almost invisible level of coverage given to it by NBC. Anyway that discussion can be had elsewhere, I don't see the relevance to C4 opening their chequebook very wide to snap up a programme they previously didn't feel was worth commissioning.

I don't think Channel 4 will 'Sex up' GBBO as much as people are suggesting. This feels similar to the change from Something for the Weekend to Sunday Brunch. Practically no change at all.

I notice over on Digitalspy the BBC bashers are having a go at the BBC for not forking out the £25 million a year asked. But I'm sure if they had forked it out they'd be attacking them for wasting so much licence payers money...