Bake Off needs 3 million viewers to break even, Channel 4 says

Channel 4 needs the Great British Bake Off to attract at least 3 million viewers per episode to break even on its blockbuster £75m deal to buy the show, the creative chief of the broadcaster has revealed.

Jay Hunt told the Edinburgh international TV festival she would be delighted if the programme attracted between 5 million and 7 million viewers when it airs for the first time on Channel 4 next Tuesday.

“If it gets five, six, seven [million] I would be absolutely delighted,” Hunt said. “This show breaks even at around 3 million, so anything north of that would be fantastic.”

Channel 4 averages around 1 million viewers for the Tuesday night slot. Ratings for Bake Off are likely to fall after the switch from BBC1: last year’s final attracted a peak audience of 14.8 million, making it the most popular show of the year.

Channel 4’s highest ever audience is 13.8 million, for the drama series A Woman of Substance in 1985, while Big Brother brought in almost 10 million viewers at the peak of its popularity at the start of the millennium.

Bake Off has moved from the BBC after Channel 4 paid £75m to the programme maker, Love Productions, to broadcast it for the next three years. Judge Paul Hollywood is the only one of the original stars of Bake Off to have made the move to Channel 4, with fellow judge Mary Berry and presenters Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins all leaving.

Hollywood is joined in the new series by judge Prue Leith and presenters Sandi Toksvig and Noel Fielding. Hunt said it was her idea to approach Fielding, praising the comedian’s “ability to communicate with children”.

The cost of purchasing Bake Off means a lot is riding on the programme being a commercial success. The broadcaster has resisted the temptation to offer advertisers the chance to pay for product placement, in order to protect the integrity of the show, but it has signed sponsorship deals with Lyle’s Golden Syrup and Dr Oetker worth an estimated £4m. The programme will include more than 15 minutes of adverts and run for 75 minutes.

Hunt, who is leaving Channel 4 next month, denied the broadcaster had poached Bake Off from the BBC, saying Love Productions and the BBC had reached an “impasse” and the programme had to move. She said: “At that point it was a totally legitimate conversation [about buying the show] for us to be having.”