Waitrose will be the new sponsor of Channel 4’s The Great British Bake Off this year.
The sponsorship deal was brokered by Manning Gottlieb OMD and Channel 4 Sales. The Media Leader understands from multiple sources that the agreement is worth between £3.5m and £4m.
Channel 4 declined to comment on the figure or terms of the deal.
Waitrose will make its first appearance in “coming soon” on-air trails from 3 March around The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer.
Moving forward, the supermarket’s idents will feature around the forthcoming series of The Great British Bake Off, The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice, Bake Off: The Professionals, festive specials and Junior Bake Off.
The Great British Bake Off moved to Channel 4 from the BBC in 2017.
Lyle’s Golden Syrup and Dr Oetker were the show’s first broadcast sponsors on Channel 4. At the time, it was reported as a seven-figure dual partnership that included An Extra Slice and festive episodes. The deals were negotiated with Lyle’s media agency M/SIX and Dr Oetker’s media agency MEC (now Wavemaker).
This deal was taken over in 2020 by Aldi, which also added Junior Bake Off as part of the sponsorship. The following year, Aldi expanded the sponsorship to include Bake Off: The Professionals and celebrity specials. That agreement was brokered by 4Sales and UM.
Sainsbury’s took over exclusive broadcast sponsorship of the franchise from 2022 in “the biggest sponsorship deal of the show to date”, covering multiple years. PHD was the media agency.
Since Channel 4 took over the show, the most-watched episode was the 24 November 2020 final, which brought in 11.74m viewers across TV, PC/laptop, tablet and smartphone, according to Barb data. The equivalent figure for the 2023 final was 6.75m.
