Originally Posted by Janet43:
“ No, that's not fair enough.
There were 12 contestants - 6 men and 6 women. The majority of chefs in this country are men. The majority of bakers in this country are men. Very many men bake bread at home. So what is a "typical man"?”
The discussion is about the viewing demographics, not the contestants, or how many chefs or bakers in the UK are men or women.
Originally Posted by Janet43:
“There is no evidence in the figures that the majority of viewers are women and that the only men who watch are "henpecked husbands". Just because you don't bake and are not a chef doesn't mean that other men don't and aren't interested. I suspect many men do watch of their own volition, just not you.”
Mighty Millie provided the breakdown of the viewing figures from BARB, the official UK TV ratings tracker. Those figures indicated 63% of the viewers of Bakeoff are women. I have explained a) I was joking about the term "henpecked" and b) what I meant by it, so if you choose to ignore that so be it. There are some TV programmes I have only watched because my wife wanted to watch them. Some I have quite enjoyed, others I have sat through to keep her company but wouldn't watch on my own. I suspect for Bakeoff it's actually a pretty enjoyable programme that plenty of men are happy to watch in their partner's company, as I am sure there are loads of men who watch it on their own. But it's not the type of show a group of men would typically get together to watch down the pub, like football. Is that a fair enough assessment?
Originally Posted by Janet43:
“You've read far too much into the figures than is actually there.”
No, I am reading into the viewing figures what they tell me, and those figures match my original thinking about the main demographic. Which is not to say it's only women over 40 and their husbands, clearly people from every age group enjoy the programme. But it's not an equal split across those groups.