Great British Bake Off: Senior Netflix boss admits they wanted 'baking and chill' show
THE GREAT BRITISH BAKE OFF could have been bought by Netflix, Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos has admitted.
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The global streaming site has recently snapped up popular series such as Black Mirror and Gilmore Girls, which have previously been broadcast on terrestrial channels.
Love Productions sold Bake Off to Channel 4 earlier this year, which resulted in Paul Hollywood jumping ship with the show.
Sarandos revealed the on-demand site were interested in making Bake Off their own.
“We knew it was brewing, but I didn’t actually think it would happen,” he said, before confessing that Netflix were slow off the mark to secure a deal.
Speaking of other shows that Netflix have successfully picked up, he added that Black Mirror was not developed by Channel 4, and the success was all down to Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones.
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The 52-year-old Chief also revealed that the phrase "Netflix and chill" was the best thing that could have happened for them in terms of marketing, as it connected the on-demand service with the younger generation of viewers they were dying to tap in to.
“I wouldn’t have been happy if we’d created [Netflix and chill]. I’m glad the public created it," he continued.
"It was a bunch of 16-year-olds. That’s the connection that people make with the brand. Binge-watching was created in the press, and we tried to stop it because we thought it was a very negative word and had a lot of negative connotations, but it just caught on with people.
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"And then ‘Netflix and chill’ was a creation of social media, and nothing we had anything to do with. And we were kind of torn about it…”
Netflix plans to spend $6 billion, roughly £5 billion, on content this year, meaning anything could be possible with the huge budget.
Commissions such as House of Cards, Stranger Things and Orange Is the New Black will eat up plenty of the funds but are sure to be huge continuing hits for Netflix.
The full interview with Netflix Chief Content Officer, Ted Sarandos, can be read in the latest issue of Radio Times which is out now.
The Great British Bake Off series finale airs this Wednesday on BBC One at 8pm.
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