The Great British Bake Off will start later this year

We'll have to wait a little longer. Usually, The Great British Bake Off starts at the beginning of August, as it has done for the last few years, but this year it's been delayed. The BBC has decided to wait until the end of the month to begin the series so that it doesn't clash with the coverage of The Olympics. According to The Sun, the show will return to BBC One on Wednesday, August 24th, three weeks later than last year. Our favourite hosts and judges Mel and Sue, Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood will be back with a new batch of amateur bakers. A source on the production team said:

"Bake Off is a juggernaut unlike anything else on the TV. It pulls in huge, huge viewing figures but the bosses still have to think practically. “The Olympics is a big deal for the Beeb and they are basically wiping their prime-time schedule to show all of the action. “The Bake Off is the one of the pinnacles of their year so they’re not going to waste it. The view is if it starts on ten million plus viewers, it’ll stay there all series. “It just makes sense for it to start after the Olympic action has finished.”

The show has grown from 2 million to 12 million average viewers since it began in 2010 and it's likely that the bosses want to increase these figures for the new series. The Olympics is sure to distract some households and so distancing themselves from it will give the best possible chance of outdoing their already huge viewing figures.