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Where the ex-hosts of Top Gear would go once the existing contract between James May and Richard Hammond and the BBC ended, has been one of the hottest topics of contention among industry analysts and fans of the show for months now, following the firing of Jeremy Clarkson after a physical altercation with a producer. While there was speculation at a BBC return or a move to Netflix, the announcement has now come in: they've signed with Amazon.
Amazon also announced that it had secured long-time Top Gear producer Andy Wilman, who will fulfil the same role on the new show, which has yet to be named. Clarkson was said to be pleased with the move to Amazon, describing the change as feeling like climbing “out of a bi-plane and into a space ship.”
Indeed Amazon, along with Netflix has produced award winning shows in recent years, with extremely high production values giving them a movie feel. This should be more than a match for Top Gear's traditionally strong camera work and editing.
The new show, set to be begin broadcasting at some point in 2016, has netted all three original presenters and they will be twinned exclusively with Amazon's Prime service, its paid-for premium package which offers free postage, access to exclusive media and early access to its deals.
At least this means we'll get to continue watching them without adverts
The exclusivity on Prime, which was estimated late last year to have around 40-50 million members world wide, may mean less viewers for the trio than they have been used to on the BBC. Typically, episodes of Top Gear are watched live by around eight million Brits, with an estimated 350 million catching up on the show around the world in the following weeks.
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KitGuru Says: This is a big win for Amazon, which will no doubt see a boost in its UK Prime membership numbers when the show starts sometime next year. Would you consider the £80 a year for the service if you knew you'd be getting ‘Top Gear 2' as part of the package?
Hell Yes. I more than make my yearly prime subscription back on next day deliveries, now they have rolled out the video and music services, and considering the quality of some of their exclusives, I think it’s a dam good deal!
Part of the appeal, for me, was always the endearing made in a shed attitude of the show. Combined with jaw dropping camera work, second to none cinematography, inspired graphics, music, etc. Bringing the producer and, one would assume, the rest of the rabble along with the boys will make for fun show. Really hope they keep Jessica though.
The truth is that Top Gear was one of the very few actually *good* series on BBC – in fact for me, the only good entertainment one, full stop.
Amazon Prime and Netflix have been putting out award winning, critically acclaimed series for a few years now, mostly on cautious, initial investment style budgets, that are a fraction of the £4Bn or so the BBC get each year from our pockets. The vast majority of people I know own a Netflix account, and the ones that don’t torrent. The only people who seem to really watch TV as such, are the ones with Sky, and people with a more traditional inclination. So one has to ask, why are we paying the wages for the >20,000 staff employed by the BBC, over 6,000 of which are journalists (2010 figure, had doubled since 2001), to the tune of £4Bn a year, to produce garbage that most people don’t watch anyway?
i wonder if the bbc news actually covered this… would be rather ironic