The Great British Bake Off

The Great British Bake Off (often abbreviated to Bake Off or GBBO) is a British television baking competition, produced by Love Productions, in which a group of amateur bakers compete against each other in a series of rounds, attempting to impress two judges with their baking skills. One contestant is eliminated in each round, and the winner is selected from the contestants who reach the final. The first episode was aired on 17 August 2010, with its first four series broadcast on BBC Two, until its growing popularity led the BBC to move it to BBC One for the next three series. After its seventh series, Love Productions signed a three-year deal with Channel 4 to produce the series for the broadcaster. The programme was originally presented by Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc, with judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood. Following its move to Channel 4, Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig took over as presenters, but Toksvig was later replaced by Matt Lucas and Lucas also later was replaced by Alison Hammond. Hollywood and Prue Leith are the current judges. In chronological order, the winners are Edd Kimber, Joanne Wheatley, John Whaite, Frances Quinn, Nancy Birtwhistle, Nadiya Hussain, Candice Brown, Sophie Faldo, Rahul Mandal, David Atherton, Peter Sawkins, Giuseppe Dell'Anno and Syabira Yusoff. The series is credited with reinvigorating interest in baking throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland, with shops in the UK reporting sharp rises in sales of baking ingredients and accessories. Many of its participants, including winners, have gone on to careers in baking, while the BAFTA award-winning programme has spawned a number of specials and spin-off shows: a celebrity charity series in aid of Sport Relief/Comic Relief or Stand Up to Cancer; Junior Bake Off for young children (broadcast on the CBBC channel, then on Channel 4 from 2019); after-show series An Extra Slice; and Bake Off: The Professionals for teams of pastry chefs. On 3 October 2023 it was confirmed that The Great British Bake Off will return in 2024 for its fifteenth series. The series has been shown in other countries; in the United States and Canada, where "Bake-Off" is a trademark owned by Pillsbury, it is called The Great British Baking Show. Its format has been sold globally for production of localised versions and was used as the basis for two BBC Two series, The Great British Sewing Bee and The Great Pottery Throw Down. Background