"The Great British Bake Off" Will Be On Channel 4 Later This Year

Until now, we were only going to have celebrity specials.

A new series of The Great British Bake Off will make its debut on Channel 4 in 2017 – not 2018 as previously thought.

Love Productions / BBC

Until now, Channel 4 had confirmed only that the charity celebrity version of the show would air in 2017. Contractual issues between Love Productions and the BBC had meant that a full series was not possible.

But on Wednesday, Broadcast Magazine reported that Jay Hunt, chief creative officer for Channel 4, had said that the channel had met with the BBC and cleared the way for the show to air this year.

A senior BBC source told BuzzFeed News: "We don’t want to get in the way of them reinventing the programme.”

"In this instance, we believe it would be undignified to have one public service broadcaster in a potential dispute with another and the associated costs for each party would ultimately come out of programming budgets."

In a statement, Channel 4 said: "We are planning to broadcast the next series of The Great British Bake Off in 2017."

Love Productions / BBC

The BBC has also issued a statement: "The BBC has confirmed today that it will not use its hold back clause against C4 and Love Productions in relation to Bake Off and its associated shows. We wish the programme well for the future and look forward to seeing who is cast on the show.

"The BBC is proud of the part it has played in growing and nurturing the programme - doing that is at the core of what the BBC does.

We have many exciting projects for the future. Watch this space."

Bake Off had been casting for new bakers in a forthcoming series. Applications closed last Friday.

Love Productions / BBC

There has been no announcement of who will host the show, nor who will judge alongside Paul Hollywood.