I did. Have you been in Showbiz here? The vitriol towards "Keith Lemon" who is treated as a real person for the purposes of complaint is very amusing.

Only about 500 times a day - as a certain comedian in The Guardian who you mistook as a serious columnist might say.

Any chance you can leave it now and let the thread(s) breathe. We are all aware of your position on the matter - always before your first post on any matter too as it happens.

There really is no need to keep quoting people for the sole purpose of agreeing with them and offering up nothing new...

How about HIGNFY, Hells Kitchen or Would I Lie to You after Angus Deayton left them?

Film after Barry Norman retired, or countless others

The bbc had 12 months to reach an agreement, they couldn't. If they really wanted it that badly, they could have (smaller increase than the one LP wanted, but with a guarenteed 3 series. Things like that)

Of course the show will be unrecognisable on 4 which is why I and millions of others will give it a wide birth and stick with the Beeb instead.

Here's why...currently, Bake Off is a very charming, perfectly paced, laid back show featuring normal people...which doesn't take itself to seriously. The tone is very BBC and very British...then...along comes commercialisation......plus the change of personnel. In addition:

Bring on the sensational participants with the sob stories.
Bring on the overly dramatic music and fast paced editing.
Bring on the product placement.
Bring on the sponsorship. I've heard Mr Kipling is very interested. 'Bake Off, sponsored by Mr Kipling'. Yuk
Bring on the god awful frequent and lengthy ad breaks. Double yuk!

Everything that makes Bake Off enjoyable and charming now will be lost with the move to 4.

4's and Love's behaviour has done immense damage all round. Loss of trust between broadcasters, loss of trust between indies and loss of trust between indies and broadcasters. Furthermore, all indies will be tarnished with the same brush which is a shame because I am sure there are some who operate an ethical ethos sprinkled with a good dose of public service values.

I know Janet. I see it as do the indies clearly, well at least those who have spoken out so far.

Re: HIGNFY, I would suggest that there was a lot of luck there. I am sure at the time, many thought that the show would end after Angus left.

Re: Film, people can get their head around change if people retire. People retiring being the key point here.

The Beeb offered an extra 10 mil. That should have been more than enough for Love, but we all know that Love were playing the Beeb in an attempt to extort as much wonga out of them as possible in the name of greed. Love failed. We will all lose out now as a result of their greed. I will go further. They deserve no further contracts with the Beeb. They need to be made an example of!!

So Love Productions had no responsibility at all? They just had to sit around until the BBC gave them everything they wanted? You seem too have a very odd idea of what the word 'Negotiations' means.

I'm not offended - I'm not the type of person who gets offended, just frustrated that some people can't grasp the facts as stated by those in the know, i.e. the channels and the production companies. I'm also averse to lying because it can have consequences, and if someone is prepared to lie about something trivial, they're usually willing to lie about something important (based on experience).

I hope you now realise, though that having a dig, even in jest, at the physical ability of someone you don't know is inappropriate. My condition has nothing to do with my age - it hit me at age 48. Fortunately there's nothing wrong with my brain and my ability to listen to those actually involved in a matter and to think logically about it.

it wont be Mr Kipling who sponsors the show, not with his current range, viewers will want something they can bake, was in M&S today and there some well packaged products which give you all you need to cook some cakes.

That easy baking product is what will be sponosring Bake Off, maybe Mr Kipling can bring some out, but no point selling a complete cake to a Bake Off viewer, not least a mass produced one.

They'll definitely have the name of the sponsor emblazoned across the top of their aprons.

Commercialism is just awful isn't it. Well, it will bring about the death of Bake Off that's for sure.

The BBC spend £1300 million a year on BBC One alone, every single year. If anyone tells you that they can't afford £25 million for the single biggest show on the channel - because after all BBC1 especially is not a charity and can be expected to pay market rates for commissioned material - then they're telling porkies.

I take it you have no objection to the BBC paying the full competitive market rates for its presenters then?

Any production company that had delivered a programme which had ratings increase by more than 600%, for one.

But of course the BBC doesn't think that "factual" programming is worth paying market rates for. I'm not sure what's more disgraceful about that - the fact that BBC consider 'entertainment' more worthy than anything that might be reasonably intelligent, or the fact that the BBC considers a synthetic reality-gameshow like GBBO to qualify as 'factual' at all.

But the fact remains that it's a bona fide BBC hit, the biggest show on BBC One - yet they showed nothing but disrespect for the producers who brought them the goose that laid the golden egg. So that's why they don't have it any more.

It doesn't cost that currently, because the BBC doesn't pay that much for it.

With a proper budget, you can expect to see a higher quality result on screen.

A bigger tent?

They definitely will not, Janet, that kind of thing is prohibited under the OFCOM sponsorship code, and not even the most junior member of staff at any independent producer would make a mistake like that.

I think the BBC should spend its money in whatever way provides the fullest and best value for the licence fee payer. If that means paying less where the talent is happy with that arrangement, then that's great, if that means paying more to secure the services of top-flight top-of-the-line well-loved talent that viewers will really enjoy and appreciate, then that too. Like all things, it's a question of judgement.

It's a tragedy for the BBC and the country, but on a more upbeat note Clare Balding ( the nations favourite ) will be available to present it. The only time i really want to read the words Mel & Sue is when the words chainsaw and accident are in the same sentence.

The irony with you is that had the Beeb paid up you'd be doing a Daily Mail on it now wouldn't you.

You are failing to grasp the issues here. The BBC is a public service. The BBC was good enough for Love when they had no show and no audience. The BBC built the show and 'invested' in it. Suddenly, the BBC's money is no longer good enough for them. They pulled the rug from under the BBC in a shameful way when greed took them over. They have committed the ultimate here by placing profits before people. They will never be forgiven for their betrayal. They have betrayed the BBC, the licence fee payer and the audience.

No, I wouldn't. GBBO is the biggest show on British television, and investing a proper sum in securing the series for viewers to enjoy, ad-free on the BBC, and with higher quality production than ever before, is the textbook definition of a proper use of licence fee payer's money. £25m is nothing compared to the £1300m which the BBC spends yearly on BBC One alone. I'd rather have another series of Bake Off than more wall-to-wall shit like 'Claimed and Shamed', any day.


But you would say that - wouldn't you.

You are attempting to argue a complete non-argument.

What the BBC was offering (considering they gave them the break in the first place) was more than enough. 10 million...10 million on top of what they get now is more than ample. They should have accepted the Beeb's offer end of. The fact that they didn't says more about them than it does anybody else.

Still, when Love's work all but dries up because broadcasters can't trust them, they will know where they went wrong won't they.

I didn't, I made a lighthearted comment based on older people and bungalows etc. It wasn't designed to offend you, as I didn't know you DID actually live in a bungalow.

Perhaps, but Love clearly did not agree, and it's Love's format. Love will have seen the ratings of GBBO increase hugely since the original deal was negotiated and as a result the value of the show increased significantly - to everyone except the BBC.

If the BBC hadn't been so high-handed in their negotiations, and repeatedly ripped off Love's formats in the past - which culminated in court action and an out-of-court settlement, remember - then maybe the relationship would have been more positive and Love would have been more likely to let 'their friends at the BBC' have a better deal. But to act like that and then expect a discount? No no no - not how it works.


Any broadcaster is quite free to include an exclusivity clause in their contract with a supplier, and indeed it's known that the BBC did so. Not to prevent the show going elsewhere (because that's a tangible benefit which the BBC would have needed to pay extra for) but to attempt to 'spoil' the show by imposing a one-year delay if it were to move to another channel. The same clause they had for The Voice, incidentally. (The same clause that ITV had for Home and Away, also.)

The BBC got what they were entitled to under the contract - they have not been hard done by in any stretch of the imagination. If they wanted permanent exclusivity they could have asked for - and paid for - that. They did not.

Jo Brand was on The One Show tonight, they asked her about Bake Off. She would not comment, I thought it was for contractual reasons but she eventually claimed that no one has spoken to her about the move