New Bake Off line up confirmed

40% of the launch audience from last year didn't bother last night so I'm not sure many did change their tune.

In fact you have to go back 4 years to BBC2 to get a lower overnight for GBBO and this was when the show had zero hype, no marketing , little media coverage and a quarter of the cost.

Have to admit, I've never really watched it before (other than little bits) but I thought that it was done well by Channel 4. It all worked very well, presenters/judges were good and the ad breaks weren't too distracting. It's never going to be the case that C4 get the same ratings as on the BBC, but that is to be expected and I think that they should be very encouraged by the ratings that they got last night - let's hope it stays like that!

Worthy start to its new life. I'm wondering whether it'll last. I guess 4.5M is the critical level for next week. People deride social media but the series has become reliant to a major degree on it to drive viewers and more importantly the broadcast media forward. If social media interaction numbers drop below a critical mass the broadcast media will drop it and the show will founder as a result. It might not be ideal but that's 2017 broadcasting.

I'd suggest they need to look for a quality 45min product to fill the two hour block, to prevent the switch over on the hour, that was evident to a degree last night.

The next couple of weeks I'd suggest are critical. They're fortunate that the England World Cup qualifier is on Monday and not Tuesday next week too.

How did Celebrity Island rate for them afterwards in what has now effectively C4's Superbowl slot.

Do you include Paul Hollywood in the list of people changing their tune, Hollywood famously said on numerous interviews most notably Top Gear that he wanted the programme to remain on the BBC and he thought it would. Of course he's not going to slag off his new employers however he is now saying the show is better on Channel 4.

My own opinion never changed, I always believed Bake Off was an excellent format and would do well for Channel 4 but not on the same level as it had on the BBC. The thing I was slightly worried about was casting Noel Fielding however he came across better last night than he does on most of his comedy programmes.



Celebrity Island with Bear Grylls - 1.92m
Not great in all honesty and would expect that to drop in the next few weeks when Doctor Foster returns so Channel 4 Superbowl slot may not be so good at the minute

Looks like the overnight for yesterday's episode are 5.97m, which apparently include C4+1. Naturally at least one tabloid has opted for "sheds half a million viewers" in it's headline.

In my opinion a drop in overnight ratings betwen the first and second episodes of a new series (or at least new to the channel) is fairly common, with some just tuning in out of curiousity. 5.97m viewers is still an very good rating for any channel, especially for Channel 4. To only lose 'half a million' viewers isn't a disaster isn't that bad, provided the ratings start to level off (or increase) in future weeks.

I agree that's pretty good going. I will say I had to watch on catch up last week and will have to again this week due to thinking it would be on Wednesday as it used to be.

Paul Hollywood hasn't helped things saying he wanted 8 million but last nights Bake Off ratings are still about 3 million more than their biggest show which is usually Gogglebox, I agree still a very good rating for Channel 4 and if they stay around 4-5 million for this series they will be very happy.

First episode officially consolidated to 9.5m with 12m viewings across all showings:

http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/bake-off-episode-one-watched-by-consolidated-audience-of-9-5-million

I'm interested in how the sponsors fared after the first episode, considering they went two different ways. I will assume Dr Oetker did much better on Twitter mentions, web searches etc. because talking cakes is guaranteed to succeed online. Lyles probably did quite well too but I would say Dr Oetker have got more brand recognition so far.

Just going from the two styles of sponsor, I would say Dr Oetker would do better as their sponsors showed lots of cakes and sweet treats, whereas Lyles showed sticky mess, spoons dropping into the syrup and the other bad sides of syrup. Yes we get its sticky, but I don't think many people like getting that sticky and getting syrup everywhere, thats the worst thing about the stuff. They should be showing the types of things you can make with it, or even things like showing it being put on fresh baked bread (which if you haven't tried it, its really lovely).
They could also use the sponsor to show the plastic squeezy bottle of syrup they also do which is so much easier when you need to measure the amount to quite a precise amount. I know the tin is their heritage etc, but the plastic bottle is extremely useful for baking.

Just did a quick search and after the first episode Dr Oetker had 751 tweets (including a funny one from Yorkshire Tea) and I didn't see how many Lyles got. Although I do know that Lyles got the most amount of positive tweets. Not quite sure who's the winner there. I would still say Dr Oetker because their sponsors are much more memorable, and have the potential to expand to a full on advertising campaign. As for Lyles, unless their ad agency changes it's mind it's going to come out the loser, generally because of the forgettable and repeated idents and the fact that cakes will always beat honey.