The Great British Bake Off

The Great British Bake Off (also called Bake Off or GBBO) is a British television baking competition, produced by Love Productions, in which a group of amateur bakers compete against each other in a series of rounds, attempting to impress a group of judges with their baking skills, with a contestant being eliminated in each round, with the winner being selected from the contestants who reach the finals. The show's first episode was aired on 17 August 2010, with its first four series broadcast on BBC Two, until its growing popularity led the BBC to move it to BBC One for the next three series. After its seventh series, Love Productions signed a three-year deal with Channel 4 to produce the show for the broadcaster.

The programme was originally presented by Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc, with judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood. The current presenters are Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig, with Hollywood and Prue Leith as the judges.

The show has become a significant part of British culture and is credited with reinvigorating interest in baking throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland, with many of its participants, including winners, having gone on to start a career based on bakery, while the BAFTA award-winning programme has spawned a number of specials and spin-off shows: a celebrity charity series in aid of Sport Relief/Comic Relief or Stand Up to Cancer; Junior Bake Off for young children (broadcast on the CBBC channel); after-show series The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice|An Extra Slice; and Bake Off: The Professionals for teams of pastry chefs. Under the title The Great British Baking Show, Bake Off has been shown in the United States and Canada. It also has appeared in other countries, and the format has been sold to television producers in many countries around the world, where local versions are made.