Too many cooks spoil TV, says Prue (the telly cook)

AS a well- known host of TV cookery programmes, she might be expected to take a keen interest in the genre.

But Prue Leith has admitted she never watches them because they are ‘too slow’.

The Great British Bake Off judge complained there was a glut of food programmes on television and accused broadcasting bosses of being obsessed with ratings.

‘My own opinion is there are too many cookery shows on telly,’ she said. ‘I don’t watch cookery shows because for me they go too slowly.’

And when she does occasionally tune in to watch other cooks at work, the 79-year- old, pictured, said she finds herself thinking: ‘I know what he’s doing now, why doesn’t he get on with it?’

Miss Leith, who made her first television appearance in the 1970s, accused TV chiefs of oversaturating the food show market simply to bring in ratings.

‘I would prefer there to be less cookery, but broadcasters are doing what the public wants’, she said.

Channel 4’s Bake Off, previously on the BBC, competes with programmes such as Masterchef and The Big Family Cooking Showdown which have similar formats. In her lengthy television career, Miss Leith has also judged on the BBC’s Great British Menu for 11 years and on Channel 4’s My Kitchen Rules – before leaving to replace Mary Berry on Bake Off. And Miss Leith hopes her stint on the show will rival her predecessor’s. ‘My great ambition is to at least equal Mary Berry,’ she told the Daily Mirror. ‘She did seven years and she started at the same age I started – which was 76 – so I’ll have to go on like she did.’ Bake Off is due to return to Channel 4 this summer.