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In a surprise move, former Top Gear presenters Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond have signed a three-year deal with Amazon for a new motoring show. Earlier rumours suggested that the trio—who left the program earlier this year when Clarkson was let go as a consequence of punching a producer—would sign a deal with rival streaming service Netflix.
While the show being created for Amazon Prime—which requires a yearly subscription of £79 in the UK and $99 in the US—doesn't currently have a name, the company has confirmed that it will go into production shortly and launch in 2016. If you don't want Prime's free shipping, you can get Amazon Instant Video on its own with a (slightly) cheaper monthly subscription (£5.99 in the UK). The show will form part of Amazon Prime's original programming line-up, which currently includes the Steven Spielberg produced Extant, and Ridley Scott's The Man in the High Castle.
Landing the ex-Top Gear presenters, as well as ex-producer and creative force behind the show Andy Wilman, is quite the coup for Amazon. At its peak, Top Gear was the most watched factual program in the world, with a global audience of around 350 million people a year. Even if only a few of those people pay to join Prime, Amazon could be looking at making a very large sum of money.
Will you watch?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by turgid on Thursday July 30 2015, @08:40PM
I don't think that even Clarkson takes Clarkson seriously. It's an act. It's a self-mocking parody of old-fashioned British values i.e. bullying, sarcasm, intolerance, snobbery....
That's why it's so funny, and I say that as a bleeding-heart lefty. I suppose it's a kind of national catharsis. It helps me look back 30-35 years and laugh at the bullies with adult eyes.
Mind you, I boycott Amazon because of they way they treat their staff. I buy my books from Booksetc [booksetc.co.uk] nowadays.
A couple of years ago when all the stories about how Amazon abuse their blue-collar staff came out I did some searching. I put "alternatives to amazon.com" into google and amongst other things it came up with a site called Ethical Consumer. I was not very surprised to find that Amazon are no longer the cheapest for most things.
My theory was that the general public is so used to just going to Amazon for nearly everything, that they are able to gradually increase their prices and no one notices. Lo and behold, that's just what happened.
Just as we "google" something to search we "amazon" our books and small purchases.
So Amazon abuse their staff, they abuse their customers and they abuse the countries in which they do business by doing everything possible to avoid paying tax.
They are super efficient and super ruthless.
People need to think a bit about how and where they consume in order to stop their local economies being hollowed out and collapsing.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by romlok on Friday July 31 2015, @10:42AM
And if his exit from the BBC is anything to go by, he is so dedicated to that role, that the performance continues long after the cameras have stopped.