They should get Tiff Needell to do it.
He'd be good I think.

Mark

He's too busy flogging warranties for used cars.

Sounds like Jeremy Clarkson in about six months *laugh*

Mark

No, he'd be poor. He's a driver, not a presenter. If he was good at presenting he'd be a presenter. He's not. That's why New Top Gear has worked and every other motoring show that's been tried to turn drivers into presenters has died. It's the same logic that says good football players are automatically the best people to present football shows on TV. It's the thinking that gives us Phil Neville and Michael Owen on Match of The Day instead of James Richardson and Danny Kelly. It leads, almost inevitably, to crap telly because the best people to make telly are people who have skills in making telly, not people who have skills in doing an oversteer power drift round a corner.

Tip Gear is not actually a show about cars and the driving of cars. The cars are just the props, they could just as easily be boats or bicycles, and occasionally have been. The presenters and their interaction is what makes the show. That's why May and Hammond, who both know a thing or two about making telly even if they can't actually drive as well as say Jason Plato, patently seem to be of a mind that without all three of them the show is a busted flush and they're better of out of it.

If you makeTop Gear a show about cars it will go the way of all the other shows about cars : Cancelled after two series, or farmed out to a channel which would crack open the champagne if it got 0.1% of Top Gear's worldwide viewing figures. If they keep Top Gear a show about three people doing ludicrous but occasionally amazing things in cars and presenting that well, they might stand a chance of maintaining the worldwide appeal. Personally however I have no confidence anyone inside BBC management has even a shaving off the side of a clue as to what makes TG so popular, so they'll make an utter arse of it.

Clarkson's rich beyond the thoughts of most mortal men who aren't premiership footballers. He's got absolutely no requirement to flog stuff and nobody in that bracket of company could afford to pay what he'd ask if he did.

I know.
I also knew someone would call me up on this.

The BBC must've done some sort of cost analysis of losing Jeremy.
To be fair, if I punched a manager here in work I'd expect to be fired too, so ever since this thing came to light, there's really only ever been one outcome likely to have happened.
It would've been a farce if he'd been kept on.
Top Gear has reionvented itself once, it'll have to do it again.

Mark

I suspect part of the delay was them attempting to do that but i suspect it's actually quite hard. OK, they know how much TG brings in each year, probably down to the penny. What they don't know is whether keeping TG going without Clarkson would maintain some of that, they certainly don't know how much of that, and they've got to also weigh the reputational and systemic damage NOT sacking Clarkson would cause should they have taken that path e.g. there are plenty of talented 'behind the lens' staff the Beeb are in competition to get but if one of those guys thought 'the talent' would be able to stick one on him or her without comeback would they want to come work for the beeb?


Agreed. At the end of the day, I think the BBC didn't have a lot of room to manoeuvre once the facts of the 'fracas' came out. What Clarkson did was a sacking offence in any company anywhere. They pretty much had no choice if they wanted to continue to be a credible employer.


There was a fair gap between the end of 'original TG' and the start of 'new TG' though. I can't imagine they'd maintain their audience if they left it that long this time.

Top Gear was getting well past it's sell buy date anyway so now is a good excuse/time to end it for good.

I suppose I quite enjoyed the Clarkson. Certainly about the only show on TV I'd try and watch weekly as a nice end to the weekend.
However.
There are more, and better, motoring show on YouTube these days. Yes, you may wait longer than a week for a new episode. But, as the budgets are lower, the people involved tend to be more involved and engaging.
Off the top of my head I'd point anyone in the direction of Motor Trend, /Drive and Mighty Car Mods (a two man band who've produced two 90 minute films and an episodic trip across Australia in borrowed vehicles to a standard approaching Top Gear's stuff).
What you'll notice is that none of those are UK based.
Like a lot of our output, the foreign variant is better (to my mind at least), for reasons you'll have to discover. For me, they're more involved, more genuine and just as fun.
As Clarkson said, a modern car review program is pointless. Any car you buy on the forecourt today will drive, stop and steer in an adequate manner for today's roads. What you'll end up talking about isn't motoring, but creature comforts.

I liked Top Gear. But am I bothered that it's (most likely) over? Not really.
Should we be wary of the cult of personality? Absolutely.

Is William Woolard still around? I used to enjoy watching TG when he was presenting it.

I remember Top Gear from the time when the presenters were Jeremy Clarkson, Quentin Wilson and Tiff Needell. I watched it avidly but it was definitely similar to how Fifth Gear has been.

The current mix worked well for a while but I honestly got bored about three series' ago and stopped watching. I've said before that they needed to freshen it up a little. Something like dividing it into three twenty-minute segments, each with a different focus. It jumped the shark a while ago.

Jay Kay?

Silly hats and fast cars.

That's what I said. I think he'd be really good.

Tbh I think quite a few of the stars in reasonably priced cars would be good hosts.

Maybe Jay Kay and someone techie and sensible like Robert Llewellyn. Or Suzy Perry.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I like RL but SP strikes me as a 'safe pair of hands'. How about the Artist Taxi Driver? just for his serious/comic rants. Of course that would never do for auntie. A lady would be great on a new show… how about our fave redhead???

edited for grammar and content;)

I'm playing fantasy Top Gear in my head and so far I've got Guy Martin, Steve Coogan but I need a third...