'British Bake-Off' Leaving Beeb for C4

[Mark Jeffries]

"The Great British Bake-Off," or as it's called on PBS, "The Great British Baking Show," the world's most civil reality show, will move next year from the Beeb's primary network BBC1 to Channel 4, the commercial-but-not-for-profit net that hasn't had a reality hit since "Big Brother" moved to Channel 5 a few years ago--the current sixth season is running on the One right now:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/bbc-lose-british-bake-927930

Snarky-yet-civil hosts Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc want the show to stay on the Beeb and have already announced that they will not move with the show to C4.  It is rumoured that judges Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry are also against the network switch, which may leave producers Love Productions to find a whole new cast.  (Meanwhile, Union Jack, the digital radio station created by a bunch of Adam's former mates at Absolute Radio for the owners of the Jack FM franchise in the UK, which plays nothing but music by British artists, boasts on its web site that it is "more British than Mary Berry's soggy bottoms."  If you watch the show, you'll get it.)

[David Risner]

I believe the season currently running on BBC1 is the seventh season, as the sixth season just finished running on PBS here in the states a few weeks ago.

Hard to imagine the show continuing without Paul & Mary. I can see it without Sue & Mel, although I would rather not. Having watched some of the Australian version which doesn’t have Paul & Mary, I would really hate to see them go. It just wouldn’t be the same show.

I wonder if BBC can reconstitute the show with Sue, Mel, Paul, and Mary with a slightly different format and, of course, a different name.

I remember Bravo trying to make a replacement for Project Runway when it jumped ship to Lifetime. It didn’t work too well, but it also didn’t have any of the PR cast of judges and hosts.

[Adam Bowie]

This is all front page news in the UK because this is the biggest show on British television. And when I say biggest, I mean bigger than everything, including the Olympics, England football and anything else. 

A couple of things worth noting here:

- BBC One and ITV are the biggest two networks, and quite simply, switching channels beyond those two will definitely see a fall in ratings if all things remained the same. 

- Channel 4 is probably about the fourth biggest network in the UK, but although it's a state broadcaster (so not privately owned), it's funded by advertising. 

- It seems that the production company that owns the rights, Love Productions, may have turned down an even bigger offer from ITV where it wouldn't have fitted.

- Love Productions, which created and owns the format, is 70% owned by Sky which in turn is 39% owned by Rupert Murdoch.

The biggest thing here is that Channel 4 seemed to have bought the format without securing the talent. As Mark mentions above the two presenters have announced they're quitting, and the pressure will be on to see what the two judges, Paul and Mary, do. Without the talent, C4 has basically bought a large tent in a field, and I would suspect will really struggle to recoup its investment. Oddly enough, which network airs a show is a *big thing* in the UK, and the production company are probably seen as really greedy by the public at large for not doing a deal with the BBC. They may have thought that they had the BBC over a barrel because it's the biggest show on TV, but a tough new funding regime and a need not to  be bullied means the BBC clearly played hardball and lost.

I suspect that it won't happen, but yes, it would be very easy to reconstitute another competitive cookery show. Indeed Masterchef remains fairly popular on BBC One (with a spinoff on BBC Two) having run in one guise or another for many years. I can, however, seeing all involved getting lots of other shows on the BBC if they don't go to C4. While the BBC is fairly constrained in what it can pay key talent compared with what, say, ITV might pay, there are other benefits. Popular shows like Bake Off see spin-off recipe books become best sellers, and there's lots of money to be made there by the talent. The bigger the show, the more books get sold.

It'll be one to watch.

Adam (Who met his old boss last week to hear about the new Union Jack service. It's based on the Jack FM format, the rights to which they own in the UK. The difference being that it's not there to compete with local services (this is national), so skews older, and yes, more British. www.unionjack.co.uk where you might be able to listen without being blocked if you're outside the UK)

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[PGage]

Like many others I so love this show - though have only seen up to season 3, and am looking for where to see season 4. Did not know they had already done season 7 and shown 6 on PBS.

I very much hope they find a way to do a show with all 4 of the principals, one way or the other, on BBC.

BTW - Why is this show so great? I mean, it is great, but what makes it so great? I keep hearing it described as civil, and that is a big part of it, but the judges, especially, Paul, can be pretty tough. I particularly like how important it is to the contestants to do well - not so much to make money or fame, but to get the approval of world class bakers that they respect.

[Brad Beam]

From: tvor...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tvor...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of PGage

>Like many others I so love this show - though have only seen up to season 3, and am looking for where to see season 4. Did not know they had already done season 7 and shown 6 on PBS.

 

According to a separate Hollywood Reporter article, Netflix has streaming rights to the back catalog.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/great-british-bake-season-7-925624

 

_  _

|_>|_>  Brad Beam- Belle WV

|_>|_>  http://www.facebook.com/74bmw

[Bob Jersey]

Adam Bowie, to David Risner, in part:

Adam (Who met his old boss last week to hear about the new Union Jack service. It's based on the Jack FM format, the rights to which they own in the UK. The difference being that it's not there to compete with local services (this is national), so skews older, and yes, more British. www.unionjack.co.uk where you might be able to listen without being blocked if you're outside the UK)

Given they conduct contests that ostensibly are limited to the UK, that alone is an ironclad reason to block.

B

[PGage]

On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 5:52 PM, Brad Beam <b.b...@suddenlink.net> wrote:

According to a separate Hollywood Reporter article, Netflix has streaming rights to the back catalog.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/great-british-bake-season-7-925624

But so far only Season 1 is streaming on Netflix.

I saw season 3 on Comcast's On Demand service earlier this summer. Have seen season 2 (and now have started 4) on another video streaming service that we are desperately hoping does not attract the attention of the authorities who may demand it be taken down...

[Tom Wolper]

It isn't blocked for me in the USA.

[David Lynch]

"Civil" doesn't necessarily mean warm and fuzzy when it comes to the judges' critiques, but it is very far from the sort of competitive reality TV where the participants say "I'm not here to make friends." The drive that defines the bakers is their perfectionism, not their competitiveness. Everything is couched in terms of success or failure at the challenge.

The other thing that jumps out at me is how lighthearted everything is. Mel and Sue have been pretty good at helping the more stressed-out contestants remember that it's just cake (and, if the rumors are true, standing near anyone who gets particularly emotional and using enough brand names and swear words to render any footage of the moment unusable.) If anyone thinks that winning Bake-Off will completely change their life, it doesn't make it to air.

On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 18:47 PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:

Like many others I so love this show - though have only seen up to season 3, and am looking for where to see season 4. Did not know they had already done season 7 and shown 6 on PBS.

I very much hope they find a way to do a show with all 4 of the principals, one way or the other, on BBC.

BTW - Why is this show so great? I mean, it is great, but what makes it so great? I keep hearing it described as civil, and that is a big part of it, but the judges, especially, Paul, can be pretty tough. I particularly like how important it is to the contestants to do well - not so much to make money or fame, but to get the approval of world class bakers that they respect.

On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 4:24 PM, David Risner <da...@risner.org> wrote:

I believe the season currently running on BBC1 is the seventh season, as the sixth season just finished running on PBS here in the states a few weeks ago.

Hard to imagine the show continuing without Paul & Mary. I can see it without Sue & Mel, although I would rather not. Having watched some of the Australian version which doesn’t have Paul & Mary, I would really hate to see them go. It just wouldn’t be the same show.

I wonder if BBC can reconstitute the show with Sue, Mel, Paul, and Mary with a slightly different format and, of course, a different name.

I remember Bravo trying to make a replacement for Project Runway when it jumped ship to Lifetime. It didn’t work too well, but it also didn’t have any of the PR cast of judges and hosts.

> On Sep 13, 2016, at 2:44 PM, Mark Jeffries <spotl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> "The Great British Bake-Off," or as it's called on PBS, "The Great British Baking Show," the world's most civil reality show, will move next year from the Beeb's primary network BBC1 to Channel 4, the commercial-but-not-for-profit net that hasn't had a reality hit since "Big Brother" moved to Channel 5 a few years ago--the current sixth season is running on the One right now:
>
> http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/bbc-lose-british-bake-927930
>
> Snarky-yet-civil hosts Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc want the show to stay on the Beeb and have already announced that they will not move with the show to C4.  It is rumoured that judges Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry are also against the network switch, which may leave producers Love Productions to find a whole new cast.  (Meanwhile, Union Jack, the digital radio station created by a bunch of Adam's former mates at Absolute Radio for the owners of the Jack FM franchise in the UK, which plays nothing but music by British artists, boasts on its web site that it is "more British than Mary Berry's soggy bottoms."  If you watch the show, you'll get it.)

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[Steve Williams]

On Wednesday, 14 September 2016 00:43:42 UTC+1, Adam Bowie wrote:

The biggest thing here is that Channel 4 seemed to have bought the format without securing the talent. As Mark mentions above the two presenters have announced they're quitting, and the pressure will be on to see what the two judges, Paul and Mary, do. Without the talent, C4 has basically bought a large tent in a field, and I would suspect will really struggle to recoup its investment. Oddly enough, which network airs a show is a *big thing* in the UK, and the production company are probably seen as really greedy by the public at large for not doing a deal with the BBC.

The other issue with this is that Channel 4 are obliged by law to innovate. It's clearly stated in their remit - http://www.channel4.com/info/corporate/about/channel-4s-remit - to wit, "Our overall role is to champion innovation in TV, film & digital – nurturing and growing new ideas, formats, views and voices, faces, talent, audiences and production companies." Poaching the most popular show on British TV for 25 million pounds would seem somewhat at odds with that, and Michael Grade - former CEO of Channel Four, of course - has been in the media pointing out that, at a time when C4 are running a campaign to avoid privatisation, this is the worst thing they could have done.

One great example of this from the past came in the eighties where Thames poached Dallas from the BBC, after offering the distributors a huge amount of money. This was a huge controversy because it breached the gentleman's agreement that the networks didn't get involved in bidding wars for each other's programmes, to stop costs spiralling out of control, and even the rest of the ITV network, who weren't consulted about it, said Thames had behaved in a shoddy and underhand manner. In the end Thames had to humiliatingly give them back, and the CEO of Thames resigned.

Someone I follow on Twitter was suggesting putting a bet on the next series of Bake Off being on BBC1. Given how badly this is going so far, I would endorse that.

(BTW, I do work for the BBC. But not a part that has anything to do with this.)

[Bob Jersey]

Well, the other possible explanations are:
1. My suckily-slow connection is too slow for them.
2. My security settings are stopping them.
3. My javascript issues are too much for them.

B

[Adam Bowie]

While this is all far too much effort to trial a radio station from across the Atlantic, there's always TuneIn. The mobile app tends to work well. 

[Adam Bowie]

The other really interesting thing is the future of Channel 4 as a whole. The previous Culture Secretary (who seemed to dislike UK television quite a lot), was considering plans to privatise Channel 4. If that happened, there'd be a fair to middling chance that a US company might come in and buy the network. Channel 5 is owned by Viacom after all.

[Side question: Is it still the case that a British company wouldn't be allowed by law to buy a US network, even if there was one big enough to swallow a network up? Murdoch became an "American" just to buy Fox didn't he?]

It's not clear that privatisation - or partial privatisation is completely off the cards. And Channel 4 is behaving a little less like an alternative channel as its remit noted above says it should be. Buying Bake Off is just one part of it. They also recently aired a series called Naked Attractions in which, well, I'll let you Google it. Just lets say that unlike Naked Dating or Naked and Afraid, there were close-ups and absolutely no pixelation or blurring whatsoever. A lot of UK media commentators were surprised that they aired this while their future is in the balance. Only today, an editorial in The Sun (proprietor: R Murdoch) calls for the channel's privatisation off the back of this.

Channel 4 is unique in the UK broadcasting sector in that it has a need to be challenging, is free to air, and is very supportive of minority groups. It would be stupid if something like this wrecked part of the British broadcast ecology.

Right - I'll get off my soapbox now...

 

[Bob Jersey]

Adam Bowie, to moi:

While this is all far too much effort to trial a radio station from across the Atlantic, there's always TuneIn. The mobile app tends to work well. 

Until they run out of available streams. Don't worry, the craze will calm down at some point.

B

[Mark Jeffries]

You can be a foreign entity and own networks, particularly cable networks, but you cannot be a foreign entity and have majority control of station licensees.  There's nothing that could've stopped Murdoch from starting Fox as a network, but buying off Metromedia's stations made him a station owner and he had to become an American citizen to keep the stations.  Similarly, Televisa of Mexico, that country's dominant broadcaster, had to sell off its majority interest in Univision for that network to keep its stations (although Televisa is still the primary program supplier for UNI).  BBC Worldwide could've started BBC America without a U.S. partner, but they chose to go with Discovery and now AMC as a partner.  A U.S. division of Al Jazeera owned the unsuccessful Al Jazeera America (which before that and Current was NewsWorld International, owned by the CBC, which also owned Trio, which they sold to NBC and is now defunct.)

As for Channel 4, isn't the reason they had to drop "Big Brother" was because it had become too popular?  And one could argue that they had no business even putting on their air the UK version of "Deal or No Deal" (which is about to go off the air after eleven years, I believe one of the longest-running versions of the franchise).  That could've gone on ITV or C5 with no problem at all.  (Not the BBC--because of the license fee, they can't put on big-money game shows unless they're National Lottery-related--"The Weakest Link" got on only because it was stated that the odds of anybody winning the potential maximum figure on that show were infinitesimal.  If you ask why they can't put on those shows, they don't want a viewer complaining about their license fee money going to make a game show contestant rich.)

Mark Jeffries
Saints Spotlight Editor
spotl...@gmail.com

--

[Brad Beam]

From: tvor...@googlegroups.com [mailto:tvor...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Steve Williams

>One great example of this from the past came in the eighties where Thames poached Dallas from the BBC, after offering the distributors a huge amount of money. This was a huge controversy because it breached the gentleman's agreement that the networks didn't get involved in bidding wars for each other's programmes, to stop costs spiralling out of control, and even the rest of the ITV network, who weren't consulted about it, said Thames had behaved in a shoddy and underhand manner. In the end Thames had to humiliatingly give them back, and the CEO of Thames resigned.

To tie two loose threads together:

Linda Gray (Sue Ellen) will soon be dropping in to Channel 4’s Chester-based soap “Hollyoaks” for a week’s visit with her on-screen daughter.

http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/hollyoaks/news/a805000/dallas-legend-linda-gray-joins-hollyoaks-cast/

[Steve Williams]

On Wednesday, 14 September 2016 20:12:02 UTC+1, Mark Jeffries wrote:

As for Channel 4, isn't the reason they had to drop "Big Brother" was because it had become too popular?  And one could argue that they had no business even putting on their air the UK version of "Deal or No Deal" (which is about to go off the air after eleven years, I believe one of the longest-running versions of the franchise).  That could've gone on ITV or C5 with no problem at all.

I wouldn't argue that Big Brother was dropped before it was too popular - ratings were declining, nowhere near where it was when it was at its peak. It had also become a bit of a toxic brand and I think it was more about that than anything else, to be honest. And I would probably defend Deal Or No Deal as well, because there had always been games and quizzes in that slot on C4 - when it began it will still an era when BBC1 and ITV showed children's programmes at teatime and so C4, with its requirement to offer an alternative, was always that bit more populist at teatime. It fitted in nicely alongside Countdown, which of course had been there since day one. OK, there was a big prize and it was a bit less cerebral, but it could be justified.

Even Friends, which of course became an absolute phenomenon, could be justified as well because when they bought it initially nobody else wanted it. Indeed I have a Radio Times from very early in the run which reviews C4's current Friday night line-up and says that, alongside Cybill (I think) and Frasier, "Friends is proving less popular among British audiences". US comedy has never really taken off on the mainstream channels so it was very much an ostensibly alternative path for C4 to tread.

But now you've got this, and you've also got them buying Formula One, which I've never been happy with, because I don't see how that fits into its remit either - it appeals mostly to white, middle-class, middle-aged men, the most superserved demographic of them all. It's the least alternative thing you can imagine. They may as well start buying up Coronation Street.