Love Productions hopes to convince BBC that it should allow rival to air show in the ‘public interest’ despite contractual obligations

Channel 4 is still hoping it can convince the BBC to allow it to broadcast a new version of Great British Bake Off next year, despite contractual obligations that would rule this out until 2018 at the earliest.

Love Productions, which has made the show for the last seven years, could be barred from launching Bake Off on a rival channel for 12 months from the last episode of the current series, under the terms of the contract signed with the BBC.

However, sources close to Love and Channel 4 suggest that the team still hope to convince the BBC that it should act in the “public rather than self” interest and allow an earlier launch for the main show.

A Channel 4 source said: “We would be disappointed if the show was off air for a year.” Another source close to Love said: “The BBC is meant to be the cornerstone of the creative economy. It’s not really in the public interest to invoke this clause, is it?”

Such an argument is unlikely to hold much sway with the BBC, which is working on a rival format involving three of the show’s four original presenters.

“When they bought the programme, Channel 4 knew the terms under which they were doing so,” said a BBC source. “They can’t now have their cake and eat it too.”



An in-house production team is working on a format involving judge Mary Berry alongside presenters Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins which it hopes to start filming next year.

The BBC told the Guardian: “We could probably get a show out before Channel 4, if we chose to do so.”

Any new format involving the three popular presenters is likely to be pored over by Love’s lawyers for any rights issues. The Bake Off producers have previously threatened court proceedings against the BBC for a show involving a search for the nation’s leading hair stylist, called Hair, claiming the deployment of several rounds and a technical challenge made it too similar to Bake Off.

The BBC, which has the right to license the Bake Off format overseas until 2028, is confident that a new baking show, with a different name and format, would not infringe copyright. “It isn’t as if the BBC doesn’t have history with cooking shows,” said one executive.

Channel 4 is separately looking to recruit a co-presenter alongside Paul Hollywood, Berry’s fellow judge who signed up to Channel 4’s version of the show, for which the broadcaster paid £75m in a three-year deal.

The channel denied rumours that last year’s Bake Off winner, Nadiya Hussain, was being lined up as a co-presenter, saying it was too early to have lined up anyone. Hussain, who has presented a junior version of the show as well as a one-off BBC series in which she travelled to Bangladesh, is thought to be more likely to stay with the BBC.

Channel 4 separately is planning a celebrity version in aid of Stand Up for Cancer next autumn.

In the meantime, Hollywood is filming a new car show for BBC4. The BBC scotched rumours that this might not be aired, saying: “We are not petty.”

