The BBC has confirmed that long-running cookery programme Ready Steady Cook has been axed after almost 16 years.
Media Guardian reports that the move was made to axe the Ainsley Harriot-fronted show as the BBC attempt to freshen up their daytime schedule.
No new series of the programme will be made and repeats will end next year.
"After 15 years, 21 series and nearly 2,000 episodes, Ready Steady Cook has hung up its cooking aprons. I'm proud of the show, which will go down in history as the longest running cookery show on TV," Liam Keelan, the BBC's head of daytime said.
"BBC Daytime is constantly looking at ways to innovate and refresh our programme formats and, while the series has been hugely popular on BBC2, it was felt that Ready Steady Cook has been taken as far as it could."
He continued: "This will help make way for new cookery shows including The Hairy Bikers' Cook Off, as well as more drama like Moving On, The Indian Doctor and Land Girls, and current affairs programming, which I really want to be at the heart of Daytime.
"Ready Steady Cook fans will, however, still be able to enjoy repeats of the show as they will continue to be broadcast for some time yet."
Harriot added: "I feel privileged to have been part of the Ready Steady Cook family for the past 15 years. I am immensely proud of its success as the longest-running cookery show on British television and will always look back on it with the fondest of memories."
After watching the Red Dwarf special edition of this show an American TV critic once asked me if the cookery programme was 'real'. I had to explain that not not only was it 'real' but that it was still running in this country.
