All four of Europe’s leading cooking-show formats have made (and sustained) their way into local adaptations across much of the continent; and all originated in the UK. Cookery makes the perfect formats: tone versatility, local relevance, spin-off potential, cost-efficiency The genre’s strength lies in its versatility: Kitchen Nightmares brings in factual entertainment; Come Dine with Me adds a dimension of reality TV; The Great Bake Off offers feel-good entertainment; while MasterChef stands as the premium, prime-time cooking competition. This breadth allows these formats to be adapted concurrently in the same markets. These cooking shows are also efficient as formats. Firstly, they require modest production costs: two of the four are filmed primarily on location, while MasterChef and The Great Bake Off require comparatively lighter sets and no studio audience. They are also durable IPs, with all four formats from our 2024-2026 top having first aired by 2010. Finally, they can easily be expanded into new programmes building on the original brand: Kids and Celebrity versions, themed special editions, after-show, All stars… The genre became a staple of TV entertainment, and a natural fit for broadcasters Being particularly flexible and recognisable, these formats are attractive to broadcasters looking for dependable entertainment propositions. Cooking shows have become a particularly important genre for challenger commercial channels. M6 now dominates the genre in France, having aired since 2024 four Top Chef iterations, five seasons of The Great Bake Off, regular editions of Kitchen Nightmares and Come Dine with Me, as well as The Best Bakery and three other locally developed concepts. Pay-TV channels have also embraced cooking shows, with MasterChef adapted by Sky Italia and TV3 Denmark (Viaplay). Public broadcasters have an ambiguous relationship with them, and they tend to rely on original concepts. A prime example is ZDF’s Die Küchenschlacht, a weekday cooking competition that has aired daily since 2008. There are nevertheless counter-examples demonstrating the appeal of established cooking IP to public broadcasters. The Great Bake Off, with its uplifting tone, has the broadest presence among public broadcasters: it has been picked up by Ceska Televize (Czech Republic), DR (Denmark), NRK (Norway), RTVS (Slovakia), and recently RTVE (Spain), taking over the Celebrity Bake Off after a first season as an Amazon Prime original. France TV also turned to the MasterChef brand in 2022, seeking to modernise its cooking line-up with a prime-time competition. The revival, however, did not meet its audience and was cancelled after one season. Strong IPs made for production powerhouses Banijay’s vertical integration is particularly effective with MasterChef. The “most travelled food format globally” is produced in-house in eight of the nine countries where the format is currently active in Europe. ITV Studios has not been able to replicate...
