Great British Bake Off has found a new home on Channel 4 after leaving the BBC.
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The production company is believed to be keen to keep the series on free-to-air television, with ITV and Channel 4 understood to be the frontrunners.
News reports that the BBC has lost their contract to broadcast the show, with issues said to involve money matters and “development of the brand”.
Love Productions stated: “After an extraordinary six-year journey with the BBC, Love Productions announces with regret that it has been unable to reach agreement on terms to renew the commission of ‘The Great British Bake Off'”. It’s a public service, free-to-air broadcaster for whom Love Productions have produced high quality and highly successful programmes for more than a decade.
The BBC has a one-year “holdback” written into “The Great British Bake Off’s” contract, meaning that the main show can not air on a rival British broadcaster next year.
The company behind the baking show, which receives up to 13.4 million viewers, announced in an internal email today that despite a long period of negotiations, talks with the BBC to continue broadcasting rights have broken down. A statement from the BBC press office stated it was “a considerable distance apart on the money”.
The statement suggests that the door is not completely closed, though, as the network hopes “Love Productions change their mind so that Bake Off can stay ad-free on BBC One”.
Vanessa Gratton wrote on Twitter: “Well, this’ll be the previous year I watch The Great British Bake Off then”.
‘We are really saddened by this outcome because we always wanted to stay on the BBC.
The memo said that as recently as June, Love Productions was “convinced this was going to happen”.
Season 7, which began airing in August in Britain, will be the last on the BBC, Love Productions, which makes the show, told the staff on Monday.
BBC has housed the popular show, which stars much-loved United Kingdom bakers Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood, for six years and it has been one of the channel’s biggest hits.
ITV are most-likely to air the show which is now in its seventh series.
Love Productions has worked with Channel 4 in the past, including on controversial factual documentary series Benefits Street.
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Last year’s final was most-watched show of 2015, with 15.1 million people seeing Nadiya Hussain crowned Bake Off champion.
