The Great British Bake Off showrunner admits last series was ‘not our strongest’

The Great British Bake Off showrunner Richard McKerrow has admitted that the last series of the show was “not our strongest”.

The cookery competition returned for its 13th series last year, with viewers criticising the complexity of the challenges and claiming that judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith were being too harsh.

In a review of the series opener, The Independent’s Sean O’Grady claimed that “there are too many contestants making too many cakes”. Over 5 million viewers tuned in to watch the series finale, down 2 million from the previous year.

Appearing on The Media Podcast, Love Productions chief executive McKerrow said that the production team had taken criticism about the last series “seriously”.

“I’d be the first to hold up our hands and say that I feel that the last series was not our strongest,” McKerrow said. “We’re having lots of conversations, and I think you have to do that with a series that has been going on now into season 14.

“You’ve got to take a look at it and go, ‘S***, the challenges [are] too complicated.’ We’re looking very, very, very hard at making sure that it’s as good a series as it can be, this next one.”

He continued: “Bake Off belongs to the people... so you have to take very, very, very good care of it. So when people are criticising [that] either the challenges have become too complicated or whatever, that’s something we take seriously and we try to do something about it.”

The last series of The Great British Bake Off was won by Syabira Yusoff, a cardiovascular research associate from London.

Filming for the next series of Bake Off will begin in April, but without presenter Matt Lucas, who announced in December that he was stepping down from the show.

It is not yet known who will replace Lucas and join Noel Fielding. You can read The Independent’s theories on six presenters who could take on the role next.