October 10, 2024

Deabruak

The business lovers

Bake Off stays on Channel 4 in new three-year deal

Channel 4 will continue to air the Great British Bake Off for another three years after the broadcaster signed a new deal with the show’s producers.

The agreement with Love Productions will also extend to Channel 4’s existing deals for Bake Off: An Extra Slice, Junior Bake Off, Bake Off: The Professionals, The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer and The Great Pottery Throw Down.

Earlier this year Aldi extended its sponsorship of the show and its spin-offs in a deal worth a reported £4m. 

Ian Katz, Channel 4’s chief content officer, said: “We are thrilled that Channel 4 will continue to serve up Bake Off’s unique combination of warmth, humour and soggy bottoms for years to come. Bake Off is all about optimism, celebrating eccentricity and bringing the nation together – precisely what a publicly owned Channel 4 is here to do.”

Richard McKerrow, chief executive of Love Productions, said the deal underlined a “mutual respect and partnership which enables us to bring Bake Off to the widest audience possible”.

Bake Off is one of Channel 4’s most popular shows, with last year’s final watched by 11.5m people, winning an audience share of almost 42pc.

This series is averaging 8.7m viewers an episode, making it second only to Strictly Come Dancing as the most popular unscripted show.

The cooking programme was first broadcast by the BBC in 2010 and continued for seven series.

It moved to Channel 4 in 2017 after its maker, the Sky-owned Love Productions, failed to agree a new deal with the BBC. The company came in for criticism for taking Bake Off to the highest bidder in a deal worth a reported £25 a year.  

The show’s highest audience during its BBC era was 16m viewers in 2016.

Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins, who presented the show on the BBC, did not make the move to Channel and said at the time: “We are not going with the dough.”