'The Great British Baking Show' Season 17 Will Feature "Audience Choice Week"
The Great British Baking Show will return for Season 17, featuring a new audience-participation twist.
Our weekly coverage of The Great British Baking Show was unfortunately cut short in 2025 due to the sudden gap created by Congress’s defunding of PBS. However, life rolls on, and the good news is that, despite no major announcement from Channel 4, Season 17 is apparently on track to air in its usual end-of-summer berth in 2026. (The submission period to apply ends Friday, January 2.)
With the usual 2025/2026 Holiday Specials airing at Christmas and New Year’s, it’s not surprising that at least a little bit of news about the upcoming season has been made public. Longtime studio Love Productions has been tweaking the show around the edges since it was initially forced to drop International Themes after the debacle that was Mexican Week in Season 13. Seasons 14 and 15 were more regimented, even as the show tried to develop replacement themes. Season 16 loosened up again but started adding changes to the Technical Challenges to see if that helped.
Now, Season 17 will get bolder, with a plan to include viewer input on what the show should tackle, as The Great British Baking Show announces that 2026 will feature the first-ever Audience Choice Week.
The official announcement included a statement from longtime judge Paul Hollywood. “For the first time, Prue [Leith] and I are going to be sharing the reins for this Audience Choice week. We want to give our brilliant viewers the chance to help shape the show and see their ideas come to life in the tent. I’m really looking forward to seeing what great ideas come through. People often come up to me in the street with challenges they wish they could see on the show, well now is the perfect opportunity!”
Update: The contest is now open, and the voting link is available to all viewers to submit their ideas. This includes both Channel 4 and Netflix viewers, so Americans and Canadians are also welcome to submit their ideas.
Notably, the request for Audience Choice ideas does not include an overall theme. (Sorry, you cannot submit the idea for "American Week" – and considering how bad the American Pie Showstopper challenge was in Season 3, perhaps that's for the best.) Instead, it asks for one idea per challenge. You can, of course, build your own theme. For example, you may not be able to vote for Canadian Week, but you can suggest a trio of Butter Tart Signature, Chewy Chocolate Chips Technical, and a Maple Syrup Showstopper. Choose wisely.
Voting will remain open through 7 p.m. ET, Sunday, January 18, 2026. Until then, we can enter the new year assured that The Great British Baking Show will be arriving in or around September 2026.
The Great British Baking Show Seasons 1 through 7 are streaming on the Roku Channel; Seasons 8 through 16 (called Collections 5-13) are available on Netflix. The original Holiday specials and Masterclasses from the show’s first seven seasons are on Roku. Netflix has the Christmas specials from Season 8 onward under the title The Great British Baking Show: Holidays, Seasons 1 through 8. Everything else Love Productions-related is available on Roku, including all seasons of Celebrity Baking Show, The Great Canadian Baking Show, The Great American Baking Show, The Great British Sewing Bee, and the new seasons of The Great Pottery Throw Down.
