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The new car show set to be hosted by ex-Top Gear presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May on Amazon Prime, will be “very, very, very expensive,” for Amazon, according to the company head and 15th world's richest man, Jeff Bezos. While he wouldn't confirm how much any of them had been paid, or what kind of budget they would be given, previous statements by the new show (and also ex-Top Gear) producer, Andy Wilman, have put the figure at around £160 million.
Top Gear was said to be worth around £50 million a year to the BBC, with regular viewing audiences north of five million. While Amazon's Prime service certainly has enough users to eclipse that, the fact that it's limiting the show to paying customers may mean viewing numbers are substantially lower in the initial stages of the show's life.
But this hasn't stopped Bezos and Amazon as a whole from backing it.
“They’re worth a lot, and they know it,” Bezos said in an interview with the Telegraph, while talking about various shows that his company had been pushing and would do so in the future. He's pretty excited about the new car showing – clearly – but didn't say whether he'd met with the presenters as of yet.
The trio have continued to honour live commitments, though named the show after themselves, rather than their old place of work
He also didn't put all his eggs in the Clarkson-led basket, suggesting that while the new show – whatever it ends up being called – is an important get for Amazon, “we're in a golden age of television,” and there are many great shows that Amazon has driven forward in recent years. One of its biggest hits has been cross-dressing comedy-drama Transparent, which has won many awards since debuting in 2014.
Bezos also talked Esports in the interview, saying he and his family went to the recent DotA 2 International live show and watched all of the hotly contested games. The fact that someone so rich and powerful ‘gets' Esports like that, suggests it won't be long before we see Amazon supporting it in some guise or another.
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KitGuru Say: Any Top Gear fans among you that would be willing to purchase Amazon Prime to get a look at the new show when it eventually airs?
Image source: Wikimedia
I love Top Gear, but I’m not going to take out a subscription on Prime just for TG. There’s too much competition, if you already have Netflix or something, you’ve gotta be pretty sure it’s worth switching.
Not sure I’m happy about these developments. Exclusivity in gaming has always annoyed me, as it basically limited consumer choice. You could only play a selection of the games you wanted, unless you were willing to spend an insane amount of money. Now we’re seeing the same thing happening with tv-shows. I understand that Amazon, Netflix, and HBO have to make sure they have a more attractive platform than their competitors. But no average consumer is going to pay something like 30 quid a month just to be able to watch their favorite shows. On top of paying for regular television.
I dunno about in the UK, but Amazon Prime is a one-time payment of something like 90usd to cover a year last I looked.
Student perks, £40 a year prime! 😀
UK has something similar, although it is more expensive. But consider that if you add just Netflix and HBO into the equation, you’ll easily end up paying triple that.
I’m in the UK and I pay £6.99 a month well worth it for the huge catalog of movies,TV Shows and music as well as free delivery on anything I order from amazon that I now will get the “real Top Gear” is a welcome bonus.
Won’t be watching the “fake” Top Gear BBC is doing now with that washed up Radio DJ Chris Evans whose only claim to fame is having a white Garage/lounge with 7 white Ferrari’s in it and he married a pop star once upon a time and hosted some TV shows on Channel 4.
The female producer they Evans has hired has never done anything car related in her life the last thing she did was shooting stars with “reeves and mortimer” she probably doesn’t know the difference between a turbo charger and a tampon.
Again, not the point. I’m not saying nor did I in any way imply that Prime doesn’t have a great catalog that’s not worth the price. What I’ve said is that it’s annoying that if you want to see exclusive shows, like Top Gear, you need a subscription for all channels, like Netflix, Prime, and HBO. And so exclusivity is hurting consumers.