Who needs Top Gear when you have Idris? #nolimits #discovery #shamelessplug

You do understand the large majority of TG's audience is (was?) male, right?

So a black guy driving rally cars isn't as interesting as 3 white guys droning on about the same rubbish they've been spouting for years?

Not according to the viewing figures - no

Disco isn't freeview though is it?

I never watch any Disco shows but saw the 1st No Limits last night and quite enjoyed it.

Well, apart from the fact skin colour is utterly irrelevant - no. Actual rally drivers driving in actual rallys has been on free TV for years and has never got anything approaching TG's viewing figures. Why should a celeb driving a rally car do so?

There are people who will watch anything Idris is in, and good luck to them. He's a fine actor and as far as I can tell a very charismatic and engaging man. There are also people who will watch anything at all with a car in it. The sum total of those two groups is a fraction of the people who used to watchTG. Because, and I can make no explanation of this but it is demonstrably true, people do like watching three guys droning on about the same rubbish as they've been spouting for years. As I suspect we'll see when the new Chris Evans generation TG launches and the new Clarkson, Hammond & May show starts, where ever that ends up.

It would be interesting if it was The Discovery Channel but they could never in a million years afford it.

Afford what?

'the new Clarkson, Hammond & May show, where ever that ends up'

They just bought Eurosport. I think they could afford a TV show.

Yes, because 200m people round the world watch cross-country skiing.

Yeah still not sure exactly what your point is. Being confrontational for the sake of it?

Did they buy Eurosport? as I understood it, I thought they'd paid a little over £130m for a 20% which means they now own 51%

I don't know how much a channel would be expected to pay for the new top blokes programme, so I can't comment on that, but I'd bet it'll cost a fair bit. Possible as much, if not more than they just paid for Eurosport?

One company buying another is nothing to do with being able to afford to make a particular show or not. The one does not in the least imply the other. Rights to Ex-TG is likely to sell for 10's of millions and it is likely to cost about the same to make. Eurosport patently doesn't have that kind of money to allocate to one particular property or it wouldn't be known as 'the channel that shows all the sport other channels can't be arsed to bother with'. if it could afford 20m to pay for ex-TG it could afford that to buy the rights to say Italian football or European Rugby. It can't. It's been consistently outbid not just by Sky and ESPN but also by BT for IP rights. There's no evidence at all it could afford to make Ex-TG.

And as for restarting an old thread with a pretty-much-irrelevant plug for your company's show then getting all offended when people express a contrary opinion? Well, I can give you confrontational if you really want it...

By the way, that show.. your company seems have spent an awful lot of money promoting it - I've seen lots ads and even billboards up for it in Manchester. How are the viewing figures going exactly?

We are treating them as a company that are part of the Disco family so it doesn't really matter whether it is a stake or not so take that £130m and add another £150-200m which is spent annually on capex. We are one of the few channels that produces all it's own content and we have grown at an alarming rate in the 9 years I have been here. I could give you some figures for Europe but don't want to bore you.

Anyway on the whole we survived the recession and continue to be a successful company. I reckon we could afford the new Clarkson offering if it was offered.

Oh so you know how much Disco spends on shows? Fab!