Top Gear comes 'to rest' indefinitely
The BBC hasn't officially terminated its long-running TV show - but 'for the foreseeable future' it is no more
Top Gear, the pokey BBC motoring show that became a global phenomenon, has come ‘to rest’ after 46 years in the wake of Freddie Flintoff’s serious accident while filming at the Dunsfold test track last December. Given the extent of Flintoff’s injuries, it was widely thought very unlikely that the show would return in its current format; now, in a short statement released by the BBC today, it confirmed that Top Gear’s hiatus from TV screens would continue indefinitely.
"Given the exceptional circumstances, the BBC has decided to rest the UK show for the foreseeable future. The BBC remains committed to Freddie, Chris and Paddy who have been at the heart of the show's renaissance since 2019, and we're excited about new projects being developed with each of them. We will have more to say in the near future on this. We know resting the show will be disappointing news for fans, but it is the right thing to do."
The announcement comes a little more than a month after BBC Studios reached a settlement with Flintoff to account for ‘his continued rehabilitation’ following the crash that required him to be airlifted to hospital. According to The Sun, the agreement was thought to be worth £9m. The commercial arm of the BBC has also recently concluded an independent health and safety review of the production, and while it found that the filming of the 34th series had complied with industry best practice, it suggested ‘there were important learnings’ that could be applied to shows in the future.
The BBC continues to describe ‘the rest’ as a hiatus - and confirmed that all other Top Gear-branded activities and licensed formats will continue unaffected - but it remains to be seen whether the TV show will return at all, and what format it will take if it does. While it has a history of highly publicised crashes (and subsequent brushes with health and safety investigations) the Top Gear brand itself has proven remarkably adaptable, despite suffering mishaps that might have caused less popular shows to cease production for good.
It was a decline in viewing figures that spelt the end for the original show, which started broadcasting in 1977 and was cancelled in 2001 before being relaunched a year later by Andy Wilman and Jeremy Clarkson as a (partly) studio-based concept. By 2003, and the (re)introduction of James May, the format had found its feet and thanks to a penchant for ever-larger stunts - and the appearance of ever-bigger celebrities - it achieved an unlikely global following and was considered one of the Corporation’s most prized commercial assets.
This came to an abrupt halt in 2015 following the termination of Clarkson’s contract (and the subsequent departure of Hammond, May and Wilman) after physical abuse was reported. All found highly lucrative work elsewhere, while the BBC tried (and failed) to find workable replacements. It finally found what it thought were suitable comic foils for Chris Harris’s PH-honed gifts in 2019, when Andrew Flintoff and Paddy McGuinness were brought on board. But now, and very sadly for all those involved, the revamp of the revamp of the revamp ends here. PH wishes everyone affected by the news all the best in their future endeavours - and the BBC’s statement suggests we’ll be seeing plenty of Freddie, Chris and Paddy - although only time will tell if Top Gear has found its final cog.
Photo of FF seems to show pretty clearly that he suffered serious (at least) facial injuries. I had no idea it was so bad....
£9M settlement though? - I guess they'll be launching even more investigations into me now, with that to recoup from somewhere other than licence fee income...
".......Flintoff recently reached a settlement with the BBC, reportedly worth £9m. The payout will not be funded by the TV licence fee, as BBC Studios is a commercial arm of the broadcaster........"
But the premium will be getting hiked for sure...
king about. I personally thought he was (is) very impressive, and an absolute natural on camera...
And subsidise the Government News? (We mock other countries for having state media news. And if you ask any foreigner who has come to this country, you'll find that they have the same opinion of BBC News.)
What an astonishingly off-topic post
Photo of FF seems to show pretty clearly that he suffered serious (at least) facial injuries. I had no idea it was so bad....
£9M settlement though? - I guess they'll be launching even more investigations into me now, with that to recoup from somewhere other than licence fee income...
See:
(a) the fact I mentioned OTHER THAN the licence fee in the post you quoted; and,
(b) the post of mine a couple down from the one you quoted which made it abundantly clear I had read and assimilated what (for reasons best known to yourself) you assumed I had not.
Feel a bit stupid? you should do...
You're welcome.
JWW was trying to be a parasite, and deserved to be called out for it - if only to deter others of his ilk from trying to play the same stunt in future.
Whether the offer was cheeky or badly judged is irrelevant. It was made in private and didn’t need airing on the internet by Chris Harris, public figure and Top Gear presenter. He used his popularity and following to lambast a YouTuber and I think he went too far.
Chris’ dislike for YouTubers/influencers had been apparent for a while. Ironic as YT is where he does his best work and ultimately where he has ended up.
https://x.com/harrismonkey/status/1358790318011932...
He doesn’t have a problem with people making their money online, he does have a problem with people like JWW trying to bully a small business into a totally one-sided marketing deal.
It’s like the ‘travel influencers’ who spend their lives harassing expensive hotels for free stays, which is becoming a massive problem for the hotels. (I work in this industry).
Edit: It’s worse then the story of the actress and the birthday cake, which made the news earlier this year.
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/baker-celebrity-free-ca...
“Please bake me a birthday cake, we’ll pay you in ‘exposure’ instead of cash”.
Small businesses everywhere have to deal with tons of this crap every day from a bunch of entitled a
holes. Bunch of freeloading nobodies who expect hard working businesses to roll over because they make a 'video content'. The world has gone mad.
king about on her phone at get-togethers leaving everybody else to watch out for her kids. Basically burning through friends and goodwill all for the sake of - on a good week - getting a load of free st she didn't really need and maybe a grand in cash, plus the 'likes' of a few thousand internet idiots. Fortunately I think the end of the era of cheap money will mean that far fewer businesses will be bunging money in the direction of these narcissistic wasters; she's now working as a doctor's receptionist.Re Top Gear: I think it's a shame, but I think it will be back in some form sooner or later. It had been getting a bit samey well before Clarkson et al left, but it was still worth watching. The format of a few blokes doing some car-related mucking about with the odd properly-produced serious article in between is a format that works well. I'm always open to suggestions but I've never seen anything on Youtube that can hold my interest for anywhere near as long - the presenters (or content creators whatever you call them), always seem to be either trying to be Jeremy Clarkson and failing badly, or foghorning their zany/irritating personality non-stop, or just crushing bores.
Hats-off to the Baker - what an excellent retort...
Then they threaten legal action ??? Good f
king god A whole new setting and cast with just Clarkson arsing about as usual and, guess what, another ‘unlikely’ global hit.
Series 3 already in the can.
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff