What about John Vella? He'd probably be quite good. A bit of a knob, but quite nice, by all accounts.

Just saying.

SWMBO is a petrol head and will be applying

The three of them should just go to another channel and carry on.

Except of course they can no longer use the TopGear name as it's back in the hands of the BBC.
The factor to consider is the sensitivities of commercial broadcasters to things that are likely to have an adverse effect on their advertising revenue. Will a commercial broadcaster be as willing to accept the guys shenanigans if it's directed against a major advertiser (or their country of origin perhaps)? Cost Benefit analysis strikes again!

Aren't they all financially stable enough that they could make a show and put it on YouTube, or another online video watching service?

If they are desperate enough for cash, I'm sure they could advertise... I could see one or more of them holding up any given product and simply saying "Buy this" - that would do!

Ditto the format, so they’d have top come up with something different. Imagine the three of them buying the rights to Fifth Gear and subverting that...

if the show got near as many viewers on ITV as it did on the BBC, there would never be a problem selling advertising slots for it. If even a big sponsor pulled out there'd be a queue of others willing to take their place. very few ITV shows consistently get near 10m viewers.


Top Gear is VERY expensive to make. I'm sure they're all millionaires but hiring helicopters to film from & etc isn't cheap. I doubt they'd be willing to blow the large chunk of their own fortunes to make a show to give away for free. Youtube advertising would be one option, but I suspect if they went online they'd be more likely to get a service like Netflix to pay the production costs for them.

They don't hire helicopters that often, any more. They tend to use the camera drones now.

However, it is still a very expensive show, although I'm willing to bet they could increase the number of episodes per year on ITV.

Oh, and it didn't take Jezza long to get a new job!

youtube clicky

Is this man illegal?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY9u0LxIWJk

He's only had his contract renewal cancelled, he hasn't actually left the BBC, has he?

Mark

He's 'left' insofar as he's currently not got any work that was commissioned by the BBC, all he's got is his Sun column and whatever book he's currently writing. I'm not sure if his column in Top Gear magazine will also have got the punt, I think that mag's relation to the BBC is a bit tenuous.

This probably doesn't preclude him working on BBC commissioned projects in the future although I'd imagine they'd be very wary about what kind of work it was. He could still do the documentaries I think, just nothing with any scope for ad-libbing.

Hasn't he been booked to present a Have I Got News For You in the near future?
Although if he has been I suspect it's going to end up being something along the lines of when Angus Deaton ended up stepping down - the program was so about the host that it wasn't about the news.

I have seen that mentioned, but I don't know the details. Given HIGNFY is filmed very close to transmission and it kind of doesn't matter who the guest host is - all they're doing is reading an autocue after all - I think it'd be relatively straightforward to lose Clarkson and get one of the usual suspects to host instead.

This is an interesting issue though; HIGNFY isn't made by the BBC, it's commissioned by the BBC and made by Hat Trick (IIRC) so Clarkson wouln't have to have a contract with the beeb to take part in it. Especially given the topical nature of it, the BBC may not actually have a veto over who gets employed by Hat Trick to guest or present on it. And of course it's a show that's no stranger to being controversial anyway, tub of lard etc. Whether that's enough wriggle room I don't know.

I wouldn't expect him to be host this week for exactly the reason you state but the story is basically done now. Assuming HIGNFY is allowed to be on now the election campaign is officially started, in a month or so if he was host would the audience really want the show to be about him, given by then all of this will be old news?

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio ... s-bbc-boss

Ex-SF? It's either an extremely determined lunatic or team, a massive overreaction, or a load of old bollocks.

I disagree with Evans - TG has been relatively stale for years now.

There was a top gear experience simulation ride in birmigham city centre today.