Channel 4 Has Announced When "Bake Off" Is On And It's Caused An Awkward Clash

"We don't, in this instance, see any public value in two public service broadcasters going head to head in this way," the BBC said in a statement.

The Great British Bake Off just announced when the first episode of the new series will air: every Tuesday at 8pm from 29 August on Channel 4.

Channel 4 / Love Productions

Joining Paul Hollywood will be Sandi Toksvig, Noel Fielding, and Prue Leith.

However, this has caused an awkward schedule clash.The Big Family Cooking Showdown, a new cooking competition hosted by ex-Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain, is already being shown on Tuesdays at 8pm on BBC Two.

Andrew Hayes-Watkins / BBC / Voltage TV Productions

So in response, the BBC unexpectedly announced on Wednesday that Cooking Showdown will be moving to Thursdays to avoid a clash. The corporation also made clear how unhappy it was about this forced change.

In a statement to BuzzFeed News the BBC said:

Channel 4's decision to move Bake Off from its long term traditional Wednesday slot will be a surprise to many viewers who may see this as a cynical move. We never intended for our new cookery show to clash with theirs. There is room for both and we don't, in this instance, see any public value in two public service broadcasters going head to head in this way. We will therefore move our show to Thursday in the best interest of viewers to avoid such a clash.

A BBC source told BuzzFeed News: "Bake Off has always been a Wednesday show. They said they wouldn't change anything. They've already gone back on that."

If I could sum this statement up in a Nadiya facial expression I guess it would be this one:

Love Productions

Channel 4 then released its own statement, defending moving the show to a Tuesday and stating that the *majority* of the Bake Off series has always been on Tuesdays:

We made the decision about where to schedule The Great British Bake Off a few months after acquiring it and we haven’t moved it since then. It is in the original Tuesday evening slot where the majority of past series have played.

The Big Family Cooking Showdown, also starring Giorgio Locatelli, Zoe Ball, and Rosemary Shrager, has been judged by some to be the new Bake Off. But in an interview with BuzzFeed published earlier this month Zoe Ball denied the association, saying: "We think that the new Bake Off is the new Bake Off, because there is a new Bake Off."

BBC and Channel 4. Can't you two just get along?

Channel 4