Amazon prime sign 'top gear' trio

[DonkeyApple]

marcosgt said:

technodup said:

marcosgt said:

When the tweenagers have kids, a career, a mortgage (or a horrendous rent bill with no hope of ever owning the roof over their head), the need to watch a box set at 3AM after getting in from a third midweek clubbing session will decline and they'll end up watching TV like everyone else does.

Agree with most of your points but not this one. People growing up with on demand streaming or catch up are unlikely to switch back to being force fed Bake Off at 9pm just because the BBC thinks that's what we want.

They'll be choosing from the myriad available at whatever time they have. Scheduled TV is dying, and ironically the BBC have hastened that demise with the iPlayer.

Well, we'll have to see, I suspect people's lifestyle determines their pattern of viewing to a great extent.

Whether we like it or not, as we get more responsibilities, our hedonistic, devil-may-care lifestyle becomes more regulated and static.

I must admit, I watch stuff on iPlayer now and then and stream the odd movie, but I can't see it being the norm (overall) ever, personally, but I could be completely wrong and there may not be a scheduled entertainment broadcast channel in 20 years time (I'm pretty sure regular news, whatever the transmission medium, will continue).

Scheduled TV is declining, for sure, but the assumption that people are watching TV/films through streaming media instead seems to be the flaw. They're not, they're doing LOTS of other things, playing games, reading articles, books, going to the cinema (enjoying a huge renaissance).

M

PS I can't stand competitive cookery shows, so it's possible to manage without a streaming service

All of this is relevant and it will be interesting to see how it pans out over the next decade.

I can easily see the argument that scheduled TV will be dead and I'm not going to argue against that however I do think that scheduled TV has a massive advantage over 'on demand' tv and that is the simple fact that unless you are either a very serious watcher of TV who desires total co trol so that every moment in front of the TV is designed and honed to perfection, I cannot be the only one who can't be arsed to actually go and find something to watch but finds it easier to do a quick scan of what is being offered to me at that precise moment in time and if there is nothing interesting or mind numbing then I'll turn the TV off?

Even when I look at my wife or sister who both have square eyes they've never had any interest in having to seek out what to watch or succumb to the hassle of having to design their own TV schedule. And for me, certainly not. I'm probably more militant than most but the idea of wasting my life doing low level clerical work designing a TV schedule every day or crawling through endless libraries wondering what to watch fills me with dread, but then I' never recorded TV in the days of VHS so maybe I'm not a massive consumer of TV. And I don't think I alone in finding scheduled TV just easier to consume than on demand but at the same time use on demand and find it superb, for watching a small number of excellent programmes that are broadcast originally at awkward times or would otherwise restrict you to having to be in front of the TV at a set time.

In short, even if scheduled TV as we know it ends and on demand takes over completely then I would bet my bottom dollar that services will crop up within OD that synthesise scheduled TV, that you will be able to download synthetic listings. If only to cater for our love of habits.

[king arthur]

DonkeyApple said:

In short, even if scheduled TV as we know it ends and on demand takes over completely then I would bet my bottom dollar that services will crop up within OD that synthesise scheduled TV, that you will be able to download synthetic listings. If only to cater for our love of habits.

I don't know about that but I think the algorithms the OD services use for determining what you like will get much better and so you will start to get suggestions for what to watch next that you will actually take up. Netflix does this to a certain extent now but doesn't get it right enough for me.

However, if it means that you'll switch the TV off instead of watching something just because it's "on", isn't that a good thing in many ways?

[king arthur]

I strongly believe it's not a case of "if" scheduled TV ends, it's a case of "when".

[JagLover]

king arthur said:

I strongly believe it's not a case of "if" scheduled TV ends, it's a case of "when".

Certainly I stopped watching broadcast TV years ago and I'm someone who grew up with it.

I watch things on DVD/Blu Ray, Now TV, Amazon Prime, YouTube and Netflix and occasionally something recorded from broadcast TV on a V+ box (usually sports).

[HorneyMX5]

JagLover said:

Certainly I stopped watching broadcast TV years ago and I'm someone who grew up with it.

I watch things on DVD/Blu Ray, Now TV, Amazon Prime, YouTube and Netflix and occasionally something recorded from broadcast TV on a V+ box (usually sports).

This. I'm 37 and the wife is 38 the only "live" TV we watch is BBC Breakfast in the morning while getting set for work and then F1 and BTCC. That's pretty much it. Everything else is Netflix, Prime, iPlayer, AppleTV rental.

[ZesPak]

HorneyMX5 said:

JagLover said:

Certainly I stopped watching broadcast TV years ago and I'm someone who grew up with it.

I watch things on DVD/Blu Ray, Now TV, Amazon Prime, YouTube and Netflix and occasionally something recorded from broadcast TV on a V+ box (usually sports).

This. I'm 37 and the wife is 38 the only "live" TV we watch is BBC Breakfast in the morning while getting set for work and then F1 and BTCC. That's pretty much it. Everything else is Netflix, Prime, iPlayer, AppleTV rental.

Wife and I ditched the cable a year ago, haven't looked back. We watch the news from various news websites, everything else is Netflix and maybe some less legal stuff. Bought a couple of chromecasts, very easy to operate and cheap as chips. Broadcast TV is going to go the way of the music industries and the libraries imho. We've gone past that. I'll never go back to have a choice of 3 things to watch at any given time, and then sit through 5 min of ads every 20 min.

[Bullett]

I watch almost no broadcast TV. I'll put it on and maybe catch up with the news but 9 times out of 10 I switch it off again or go to Netflix or Amazon.
I think the future of broadcast TV will be the 'live' broadcast shared experience type event like Eurovision for example. I know lots of people on here and in my social group were watching as there was constant banter about what was happening.

It was better than the program. It's a social media event though, not a TV event.

I still think there are lots of people for whom TV is the main entertainment and that it is on all evening.

[ZesPak]

Bullett said:

I watch almost no broadcast TV. I'll put it on and maybe catch up with the news but 9 times out of 10 I switch it off again or go to Netflix or Amazon.
I think the future of broadcast TV will be the 'live' broadcast shared experience type event like Eurovision for example. I know lots of people on here and in my social group were watching as there was constant banter about what was happening.

It was better than the program. It's a social media event though, not a TV event.

I still think there are lots of people for whom TV is the main entertainment and that it is on all evening.

Wasn't Eurovision Live on Youtube though or did I get that wrong?

[RicksAlfas]

DonkeyApple said:

All of this is relevant and it will be interesting to see how it pans out over the next decade.

I can easily see the argument that scheduled TV will be dead and I'm not going to argue against that however I do think that scheduled TV has a massive advantage over 'on demand' tv and that is the simple fact that unless you are either a very serious watcher of TV who desires total co trol so that every moment in front of the TV is designed and honed to perfection, I cannot be the only one who can't be arsed to actually go and find something to watch but finds it easier to do a quick scan of what is being offered to me at that precise moment in time and if there is nothing interesting or mind numbing then I'll turn the TV off?

Even when I look at my wife or sister who both have square eyes they've never had any interest in having to seek out what to watch or succumb to the hassle of having to design their own TV schedule. And for me, certainly not. I'm probably more militant than most but the idea of wasting my life doing low level clerical work designing a TV schedule every day or crawling through endless libraries wondering what to watch fills me with dread, but then I' never recorded TV in the days of VHS so maybe I'm not a massive consumer of TV. And I don't think I alone in finding scheduled TV just easier to consume than on demand but at the same time use on demand and find it superb, for watching a small number of excellent programmes that are broadcast originally at awkward times or would otherwise restrict you to having to be in front of the TV at a set time.

In short, even if scheduled TV as we know it ends and on demand takes over completely then I would bet my bottom dollar that services will crop up within OD that synthesise scheduled TV, that you will be able to download synthetic listings. If only to cater for our love of habits.

I remember a good few years ago now reading an interesting article about how to get the most from your new fangled PVR. It did suggest what you are alluding to, and it's something I've done ever since. In essence - browse the Sunday paper (or other choice of TV guide) and record anything that looks remotely interesting to you. See what the recommendations are, and what the critics choice is. Takes perhaps 10 minutes. Then whenever you want to watch TV there is something on hand that you want. If you try something and you don't enjoy it, simply delete it and move on. It works well, and over the years I've watched many enjoyable programmes which if I'd just been flopping down in front of the TV at 9pm I would have missed.

[Bullett]

ZesPak said:

Wasn't Eurovision Live on Youtube though or did I get that wrong?

It may have been but I'm sure I saw it on BBC


I mean the wife saw it, I was just in the room reading Chaucer or something like that.... er.

[ZesPak]

Bullett said:

It may have been but I'm sure I saw it on BBC


I mean the wife saw it, I was just in the room reading Chaucer or something like that.... er.

I was just saying... we don't need broadcast tv to broadcast live events. It happens more than enough online and that has several options as well (eg: pause it when you want, watch it on each and every device,...).

[Pablo16v]

Bullett said:

I watch almost no broadcast TV. I'll put it on and maybe catch up with the news but 9 times out of 10 I switch it off again or go to Netflix or Amazon.
I think the future of broadcast TV will be the 'live' broadcast shared experience type event like Eurovision for example. I know lots of people on here and in my social group were watching as there was constant banter about what was happening.

It was better than the program. It's a social media event though, not a TV event.

I still think there are lots of people for whom TV is the main entertainment and that it is on all evening.

Similar story in our household. We ditched Sky last year and now have Amazon prime and a Firestick for the TV, and it pretty much gives us all the TV we need. My 30 day Netflix trial ends tomorrow and I'm still trying to decide if I'm keeping it going or not.

Hopefully the new Top Gear episodes will be free but I have a feeling there will be a small fee involved. Some of the one-off Top Gear specials that are on Prime just now are PPV but I guess that's because they were bought from the BBC.

[Birdster]

We all know what Clarkson is like and I always enjoyed the shows and took his attitude with a pinch of salt.
Eventually I half switched off with Top Gear and would watch it whilst doing something else.

I was hoping that the new show would change things up a bit, but his recent tweet shows no humility and I'm not that excited about the new show anymore. I hope I'm wrong.

https://mobile.twitter.com/jeremyclarkson/status/6...

[Jonesy23]

Looks like they're finally getting around to what they promised to do on Top Gear, if their personal projects hadn't taken every spare moment.

[ukaskew]

Very intriguing that Chris Harris is working at the exact same location and seemingly with the same cars right now. Top Gear (or whatever) wouldn't normally share filming time with journos, would they?

[DonkeyApple]

ukaskew said:

Very intriguing that Chris Harris is working at the exact same location and seemingly with the same cars right now. Top Gear (or whatever) wouldn't normally share filming time with journos, would they?

If he is then like the rest of the crew he's probably hoping to get a punch in the face so he can pay off the mortgage and buy a couple of nice cars.

He's probably Hammond's stunt double.

[Truckosaurus]

Perhaps the only way to get the 3 factories to agree to a head-to-head was to get several different journos to all cover the event.

Either that or Harris is freelancing as a wheelman for some sideways footage.

[Trevatanus]

Truckosaurus said:

Perhaps the only way to get the 3 factories to agree to a head-to-head was to get several different journos to all cover the event.

Either that or Harris is freelancing as a wheelman for some sideways footage.

I thought the cars were all privately owned by the chap who crashed his Porsche in Malta? No factory involved surely?

[randlemarcus]

Trevatanus said:

I thought the cars were all privately owned by the chap who crashed his Porsche in Malta? No factory involved surely?

Unlikely, given Malta. Unless there was a week's embargo?

[suffolk009]

Different cars I think. This is a picture from the web, story in some newspaper. Looks like Paul Bailey in the Porsche, and I think maybe his wife in the LaFerrari.





I'm not sure, but the Purple P1 on film location has the same colour and number plate as a press car. And it looks like there are Ferrari mechanics behind the LaFerrari, and maybe Porsche mechanics behind the Porsche. Didn't Mark Webber have his 918 painted in that colour scheme? Maybe coincidence.