All eyes will be on Channel 4 when their inaugural series of ‘Great British Bake Off’ kicks off next week, and the broadcast’s controller, Jay Hunt, has now revealed how many viewers she’s hoping the show pulls in.
During its time on the BBC, ‘Bake Off’ consistently broke viewing figure records, and the 2016 finale was watched by an incredible 14.8 million people.
However Jay’s aims are rather conservative, as she told reporters at the Edinburgh TV Festival that Channel 4 need to average at just three million viewers “to break even” (via iTalkTelly).
“If it gets five, six, seven million I’ll be delighted,” she added.
Perhaps Jay has learned an important lesson from Chris Evans, who declared that he’d be “disappointed” if his first ‘Top Gear’ episode pulled in fewer than five million people.
Of course, as fans of recent TV history will know, he was then left red-faced when an average of just 4.4 million was recorded.
‘GBBO’ will make its Channel 4 debut on Tuesday 29 August, with critics having a sneak peek earlier this week.
Fortunately, for anyone worried the move could have a negative impact on the quality of the show, the general consensus is that the new-look programme is just as good - if not a tiny bit better… - than its BBC incarnation.
