It's a good thing that Mel and Sue are leaving The Great British Bake Off – it means the BBC still has hope

The BBC has become a sort of finishing school for good ideas. But, by shrinking its own content teams and farming out the job of development and production to small production houses like Love Productions, it has lost control of its own destiny

It is admirable that, by declining to move to Channel 4, Mel and Sue appear to have stood up for the show’s founding ideals as a non-commercial, advertising-free format (PA)

Don’t be surprised that Love Productions took The Great British Bake Off elsewhere – the way the BBC works nowadays, it was inevitable.

Is it too snobby to admit that I preferred the first couple of series of the show? You know, the ones with the original format, where the Bake Off tent moved to various locations around the country and each episode included a little baking history lesson covering the origins of, say, the Eccles cake or Bath bun. Or is that just the thirtysomething equivalent of telling you I liked that band before they went completely mainstream and I rather prefer their earlier work? Well, I did, and I do.

And now, with the disappointing news that, from next year, The Great British Bake Off will move from the BBC to Channel 4, there’ll be much less of it too.

Already shrunk to an innuendo-laden two minute occasional segment, once the adverts begin to impinge the local culinary history will be done away with altogether. Say goodbye also to the sleepy church-fete atmosphere inside the grand marquee, as the tension between the contestants is ramped up, the challenges made more puerile, and the lurid personal backstories become the dominant theme of the show. What happened to our quaint, sedate afternoon on a deckchair with a slice of lemon drizzle and a flask of Earl Grey?

I’m speculating, of course, but not so wildly. The loss of Bake Off is bad news for the BBC; it’s a sign of its failures, and an indication of its diminishing significance as a creative player in British broadcasting. No wonder Bake Off’s legion of crumb-strewn armchair fans feel bruised.

In the court of public opinion, this slip-up matters far more than any Government bun-fight over the future of the corporation and its well-paid flunkies. Viewers feel upset that the most watched television show of 2015 will move off the state broadcaster to a commercial entity, even if – apart from having to sit through the adverts (which are also, it must be noted, a good opportunity put the kettle on) – they can’t quite put their finger on why.

The BBC hit upon that when a statement from an official spokesperson, lamenting the decision of Love Productions to chase the money, claimed Bake Off was “a quintessentially BBC programme”. In translation: it is the sort of unexpected televisual success that only state investment, unencumbered by the requirement to chase audience and sponsorships, can breed.

The first series, buried away on BBC2, was panned by TV critics. Later a hit with British housewives, master baker and judge Paul Hollywood was described by Iain Hollingshead of the Telegraph as “sinister without being interesting” and warned prospective viewers they risked boring themselves to death. Never mind: the viewers followed, and the so did the switch to prime time, and to BBC1. A hit – and an exportable format, too. What a shame that the BBC never really owned it in the first place.

I don’t know whether Love Productions cast around widely for a backer in 2009-10, when the programme was first devised, but that it ended up with the BBC is no surprise. On paper, it doesn’t work at all. Who wants to watch 12 people crouching on the floor of a carpeted tent staring into an oven door or wafting a baking tray over a wire rack of hot scones? Oh, but we do. We do!

The BBC is acting as a hothouse for broadcasting potential; it has become a sort of finishing school for good ideas. But, by shrinking its own content teams and farming out the job of development and production to small production houses like Love, the BBC has lost control of its own destiny. When it backs a runner, it is predestined to lose it (rumours suggest the BBC’s bid was £10m short of keeping Bake Off as its own).

The BBC has been struggling to survive and excel on its income for some time. I would, it must be said, be happy to pay a higher television licence in order to preserve the quality and breadth of the BBC, but polling reminds me that I am in the minority – only 41 per cent of Britons support the licence fee system in the first place, and an equal number oppose it altogether. There is no appetite among the public to stump up more, so the corporation has been getting around the problem by cutting. And this – the painful loss of the best British TV success in recent years to a commercial rival – is what death by a thousand cuts looks like. Cut a little bit everywhere, and everything (and everyone) suffers.

This may also prove a watershed moment for how the BBC manages its relatively meagre finances. “The BBC's resources are not infinite,” said a spokesperson. They are not – but they could be better spent. As a regular consumer of some of the more niche BBC offerings – BBC 6 Music is a daily soundtrack in my household, and there are rich pickings to be found in the documentaries archive hidden down the back of the iPlayer – I’ve previously proved aggressively resistant to the argument that sweeping changes must be made to the Beeb’s output; to what it does, where and how. Now I’m willing to concede I may have been wrong.

Does my beloved 6 Music need to broadcast through the night? I’m not so sure. I certainly don’t need to read lifestyle features on the BBC’s website; there are many free alternatives that offer the same service.The furore over the closure of the online recipe hub proves that every part of the BBC’s diverse output will have its vocal supporter base. But put it in these terms: if it means that the BBC can no longer afford its most popular show – with an audience of 15 million, a cross section of the British public – maybe these niche areas are simply not worth it?

There is one glimmer of hope for Bake Off fans reluctant to switch channels. In the state it’s in, what the BBC needs is advocates among its stars – and in comedy duo Mel and Sue it may have found them. The BBC just confirmed that the pair will step down as co-hosts of the show when it moves to Channel 4. One expects that a wedge of extra cash per episode would have been coming their way had they stayed, so it is admirable that the two appear to have stood up for the show’s founding ideals as a non-commercial, advertising-free format.

Good for them, but the show is still lost – not just to the BBC but, with the loss of its core talent, to the nation, too.