As Alison Hammond joins Bake Off, ITV bosses fume after Channel 4 poaches its homegrown star

When Alison Hammond was revealed as the new host of Great British Bake Off last week, it confirmed her rise to the top tier of British TV presenters.

But it also sparked anger among ITV executives, who privately expressed their anger that Channel 4 seized their star to fix its ‘diversity problem’.

Because for all its attempts to wake up and include, the rival broadcaster has been criticized for not having enough black faces among its big-name presenters.

While Hammond, 48, would hate any suggestion that the color of his skin played a role in his landing the coveted job, his appearance alongside Noel Fielding, Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood in the Bake-Off tent when he replaces Matt Lucas it will. it certainly helps address the lack of on-screen diversity.

It’s an industry-wide problem. More than 20 years after Greg Dyke called the BBC “appallingly white” during his tenure as CEO, all channels are still scrambling to recruit more ethnic minority presenters and off-screen staff.

In 2019, The Mail on Sunday revealed that a full day’s production on ITV, from 6am to midnight, featured only one non-white presenter, lunchtime newscaster Nina Hossain. The following year, veteran This Morning editor Martin Frizell, now 64, vowed to tackle the problem. Eager to be seen as a pioneer for change, he told staff during a June 2020 Zoom meeting that finding a black candidate “will not be easy.”

Initially, he didn’t seem to realize that the answer was right under his nose in the show’s bubbly show reporter.

Ms Hammond, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, joined the show shortly after competing on Channel 4’s Big Brother in 2002. And over the years, her profile grew as a larger-than-life celebrity guest on other shows. at all times, including ITV Loose. BBC’s Women, Strictly and MasterChef and E4’s Celebs Go Dating.

But on This Morning, executives continued to underestimate both her talent and her appeal to viewers, and she kept a relatively minor role.

With big-name presenters like Fern Britton, Holly Willoughby, Phillip Schofield and husband-wife duo Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford on the roster, Hammond found it difficult to break through, getting no more than a few minutes of airtime each. . week as she was sent to interview celebrities or perform ‘vox pops’ with the public.

But in 2021, ITV bosses sacked Holmes and Langsford. Suddenly an opening opened up and after being on the sidelines for so long Alison was asked to headline the Friday show with former X Factor presenter Dermot O’Leary who has more experience.

Ratings shot up 44 percent.

That she has helped ITV tackle its own diversity problem is a bonus, although friends of the notoriously ‘non-star’ Brummie say she finds the suggestion that she was part of the reason her old friends were cut ‘uncomfortable’. of the program.

ITV executives have privately expressed their anger that Channel 4 stole their star to solve their ‘diversity problem’. Pictured: Mary Nightingale and Alison Hammond on the TV show ‘Britain’s Best Dish – Celebrity Special’

Although they may have been slow to realize Hammond’s potential, ITV bosses are incandescent that the star they raised has been poached for a prime-time role in one of Channel 4’s highest-profile shows. the industry said: ‘Recently there has been a culture of other channels stealing talent from ITV which has grown and nurtured. That is certainly true in the case of Alison Hammond.

“They found her out, kept her in their barn for years, and finally gave her a break.” The BBC is equally jealous, and the bosses berate themselves for missing an opportunity, given the role Strictly played in raising her profile.

The mother-of-one has also been a judge on her Saturday night show I Can See Your Voice, which they recently axed after two series.

For their part, Channel 4 is delighted with their new signing, with content director Ian Katz elated: “Alison is effortlessly funny and the owner of the best laugh in Britain.”

Broadcasters are generally still trying to tackle their ‘diversity problem’ on mainstream shows and last month ITV introduced its second all-black lineup on Loose Women. With sad inevitability, it drew vile racist comments on social media, but as another viewer put it in defense: ‘Dude, you’ve been all white for 20 years. control yourself.