Amazon Sign Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/celebritynews/amazon-sign-top-gears-jeremy-clarkson-richard-hammond-and-james-may-for-new-show-10426102.html

by charlieirish • 11 years ago

85 109 11 years ago

standard.co.uk

ris5• 11 years ago

This is an interesting statement by Amazon about its stance on (persistent) racial slurs.

JosephRedfern• 11 years ago

If you were to follow the same argument, you could also argue that the continued popularity of Top Gear is an equally interesting statement by society about it's stance on (persistent) racial slurs.

jarcane• 11 years ago

Indeed you could. There's more than enough evidence to bear it out.

GFK_of_xmaspast• 11 years ago

It should come as no surprise that there's a huge segment of society whose stance on racial slurs is 'more, please.'

ris5• 11 years ago

I don't think racial slurs are Top Gear's primary appeal. They're just slipped in by the hosts (and clearly with the approval of the production team in some circumstances) as a (quite sinister) wink-and-nod to appear chummy with viewers who "think like them". It validates their behaviour and views.

stephenr4• 11 years ago

Which racial slur is that exactly?

abstractbeliefs2• 11 years ago

It's well known in the UK and in that article that he ~ambiguously~ mumbled the word "tigger" in a nursery rhyme.

jo9092• 11 years ago

How many comedians do you know that never make any offensive jokes? Gender, race, handicaps/health etc are very common themes in almost every comedy program I know. I won't judge on the quality of specific jokes and where exactly a bad joke ends and a racial slur begins, but in general it is an accepted part of comedy.

DanBC7• 11 years ago

It's fine for people to tell offensive jokes.

Is it fine for me to call Roy Chubby Brown lazy and stupid and unfunny because of his bad jokes?

Is it fine for me to ask people providing me content to try harder to be funny, rather than just flinging shit and calling it a joke?

koonsolo• 11 years ago

Maybe it's a statement on how they feel of everything needing to be politically correct. The shows popularity is probably also an indication on how most people feel about needing to be politically correct.

The recent github 'retard' ban is a nice example of forced political correctness.

omonra6• 11 years ago

I'm happy to see Amazon not give a toss about non-issues that keep SJWs up at night. Not that I watch the show or care for Clarkson.

ris5• 11 years ago

I must assume you consider it a non-issue because you didn't see a clip of, e.g., the "slope" incident, which is unmistakeably a racial reference. The shot in question makes no sense otherwise. Allowing "clever" references like this continue to signal that it's A-OK to use these terms casually.

It is not a non-issue. And I suggest you would not consider it a non-issue if it were the word "nigger".

JohnTHaller2• 11 years ago

It's a shame they went to Amazon instead of Netflix since Amazon's video apps universally suck in comparison (I'm especially looking at the Xbox 360 and Xbox One Amazon apps). Heck, you can't even watch Amazon Prime Video on your Android device without compromising the security of the device and enabling untrusted app installs.

9point6• 11 years ago

Also, no Chromecast support is a deal-breaker for any VOD app for me.

cmiles74• 11 years ago

Pretty much the only acceptable way I've found to watch is via their Fire TV Stick. I don't understand why their apps for other platforms is so bad; they are literally the last place I look before I give up.

matwood2• 11 years ago

I don't understand why their apps for other platforms is so bad;

I assumed it was to push people to the FireTV.

suvelx• 11 years ago

Yep. I live in the UK, have a Prime subscription, yet I'm probably just going to get it off the Pirate Bay because their software is such an ass to use.

arnold_palmur• 11 years ago

Seems to be the case all around - I have a "smart" TV and the Amazon video app is astonishingly bad. As a big fan Top Gear, I was really hoping the gang would end up on Netflix.

akilism• 11 years ago

What's wrong with Amazon Prime on the Xbox One? I use it all the time and have had less problems with it than Netflix on the Xbox One...

The android thing is annoying.

stevewilhelm• 11 years ago

Amazon's video app on Fire TV over XFinity Blast 150Mbs service is brilliant.

johneth• 11 years ago

As much as I enjoy watching those three mess around on TV, I'm not giving tax-dodging Amazon £80 (~$125) a year for the privilege. Prime seems to have a poor UI (and from what I've read has an inferior service in the UK in terms of apps and content). I wouldn't benefit from the next day delivery because I don't order enough from them.

Their (Clarkson, Hammond, May) audience will decrease wherever they ended up, but Amazon is probably their worst choice in that regard (compared to Netflix or even Sky). All I can assume is a lot of money was given to them, which suggests Amazon is aggressively expanding into Europe (where C, H, M are popular).

SyneRyder• 11 years ago

Amazon might be looking to expand Prime Video into Australia as well, where Clarkson, Hammond & May have just finished touring Australia with their live arena show. They're so popular, they could sell tickets at $89 - $399 each:

http://www.clarksonhammondandmaylive.com.au/

closetnerd• 11 years ago

Actually TopGear has pretty strong following in the US as well.

omonra6• 11 years ago

To be fair, Amazon doesn't appear to be making any money to dodge taxes on :)

vollmond• 11 years ago

Are they doing anything illegal in their "tax-dodging"? If not, why would they ever choose to pay more? I've never understood the point of vilifying companies for using "loopholes" to pay less taxes. If there was a loophole that allowed me to pay less income tax, I would absolutely take advantage of it. Why give away more of my money than I have to? If you want them to pay more, close the loophole that allows them to pay less.

century19• 11 years ago

The tactics that some companies (I don't know about Amazon) use verge on abusive. I remember hearing about Vodafone being subject to a tax investigation regarding billions they had in accounts in Luxembourg. They hired key people in the investigation to hamper progress. E.g.

http://www.accountancyage.com/aa/news/1774186/top-taxman-dit...

I think in the end the HMRC took a deal on Vodafone's terms. Nothing illegal but I think you could vilify that behavior.

justincormack2• 11 years ago

Almost certainly it was illegal, yes, certainly highly dubious process which at one point threatened to being down the European Commission president. The European Commission is investigating eg see [1] and Amazon have stopped doing it. Oh and Amazon's head of tax was Luxembourg Honorary Consul to the Seattle are, hum.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/15/amazon-lux...

talmand2• 11 years ago

I've fought this battle for a long time. It seems for most it's just a way to speak of their grievances against a company they don't like. It's just pointing their finger at the company saying they obviously are an evil corporation because they choose to take advantage of stupidly written tax laws that are totally legal yet I choose to define them as something only bad people do. Despite the fact they likely use similar "loopholes" in their own taxes and justify it in some way.

DanBC7• 11 years ago

Tax systems are complex. There are deliberate loopholes - a company can register for VAT, for example - and there are unintended loopholes.

Amazon, Google, Starbucks etc engage in very aggressive tax planning. They say it's all legal - they're not trying to evade tax, just avoid it. But because their schemes are so aggressive it might be illegal. We don't really know because the cases would have to go to court. Sometimes tax authorities will investigate, and will persuade a company that their aggressive tax plannin was unlawful, and then get some repayment of the missing tax. This usually means that the company avoids the court case and doesn't have to repay the total tax they avoided.

No-one expects them to pay all their tax burden. People in the UK recognise that tax planning is a useful important activity.

What we don't like is companies taking the piss.

And as to why they should pay tax: they get the benefits from society that flow from taxes - educated workforce, police, road infrastructure, healthcare, etc etc. They should pay their share.

Finally these companies will sometimes mention other taxes. So they'll talk about VAT or PAYE. But VAT is a tax the customer pays. The company collects it, but it's collected from the customer. And PAYE is (apart from the employer's contribution) a tax that the employee pays, again collected by the company. It's a scumbag move to reduce your tax payments to the minimum you can and then talk about the tax other people pay as if it's tax you pay.

lsaferite• 11 years ago

I know this adds nothing to the discussion, but...

Every quote from those three is internally in their voice and cadence. I find that quite amusing.

Anyone have some links or keywords I could look up to read more about that phenomenon?

jkaljundi• 11 years ago

Available in just 5 or so countries out of 200 in the world. Another win for Pirate Bay.

stephenr4• 11 years ago

Not to mention the people who could use it legally but refuse to subscribe to Amazon.

matwood2• 11 years ago

Not to mention the people who could use it legally but refuse to subscribe to Amazon.

Is that any different than those who refuse to subscribe to Netflix, HBO or Showtime, etc...

OedipusRex• 11 years ago

Agreed, Top Gear is not enough to warrant an Amazon Prime subscription for a majority of people.

smackfu• 11 years ago

No reason Amazon can't sell the show to local distributors in those other countries.

andreamazz• 11 years ago

Hope they can also bring over the production values and the photography of BBC's TG.

nailer2• 11 years ago

I think the main producer is with them, do they probably will.

brc• 11 years ago

It woudo be interesting to find out how many production staff they poach.

Perhaps they used a lot lf contract staff anyway and won't be a big deal.

Either way, with Andy Wilman in charge and undoubtedly a bigger budget, I would say it will improve, if anything.

That said, I doubt it will be a clone of TG. They probably have had some ideas they have wanted to try, but couldn't because of the BBC and because they wouldn't be 'top gear'.

hyperpallium• 11 years ago

While the lads are great, the cinematography, writing, crazy ideas (eg attack-helicopter race) - and actually making them happen - are what make the show IMHO. The hosts surely contribute a lot of the writing and ideas, though I don't know how much, but much less execution.

I understand the show runner also left with them.

Unfortunately, they can't copy the format of TG due to copyright (eg game-show formats are protected copyright subject matter). It's possible they'll come up with something even better, but more likely to be like Titanfall after CoD.

lmorris84• 11 years ago

It'll be interesting to see how Amazon respond to the inevitable complaints when Clarkson does a "Clarkson". The BBC used to fall over themselves to apologise and give him another final warning - you'd have to assume this was discussed by both parties. Personally I hope Amazon just stay out of their way and let them get on with it.

surge2• 11 years ago

I don't know, they stopped selling the confederate flag stuff, but they used to be renowned for selling books regardless of controversy of the content. So it could fall down either way.

Both incidents the BBC have him for he was coerced into situations (singing a song he didn't want to sing because he only knew the racist version from when he grew up and didn't want to say the word, then being kept up for 24 hours, and made to drink profusely as part of a show stunt) he wasn't comfortable with. They were looking for reasons to cancel such a popular show because it had such a disparate budget from the rest of their shows and that was upsetting parties within the BBC.

DanBC7• 11 years ago

Both incidents the BBC have him for he was coerced into situations

There are many more than two incidents!

They were looking for reasons to cancel such a popular show because it had such a disparate budget from the rest of their shows and that was upsetting parties within the BBC.

Surely they could have just pointed to the money it made back? "We give it huge budget because it earns more money for us than anything else we produce".

The BBC has a history of poor management of talent. See eg Chris Evans getting sacked from the Breakfast Show after making demands.

darkr• 11 years ago

singing a song he didn't want to sing

The scripts are written by the cast & the script editor (Richard Porter).

made to drink profusely as part of a show stunt

It's well known that Clarkson is a fan of the booze to the point where you could reasonably categorise him as a functioning alcoholic. He recently publicly announced after the death of Charlie Kennedy that he was giving up. So I'm pretty sure that no-one was making him drink..

He likes to paint himself as the last bastion of free speech, innocent victim of the facist Big Brother Corporation, and a lot of other things inbetween; but the reality is that he's just that embarrassing Uncle who you have fond memories of when he used to let you smoke his cigarettes and drive his car around the block when you were 10, but now you're all grown up, going through your contacts, deciding who to invite to your wedding; you just skip past because you just know he'd end up shitting in the font and asking anyone with a tan what weddings are like where they're from.

SmellyGeekBoy• 11 years ago

He assaulted a co-worker. I'm sorry but he only has himself to blame.

I genuinely don't understand why people think his sacking was part of some grand BBC conspiracy. He was good for ratings, they paid him well, it was in both parties' interests to keep him around as long as possible. Remember we're talking about the most popular TV show in the world here.

Unfortunately he put them in a situation where they really had no other choice.

yokohama114• 11 years ago

If he wasn't on BBC (which as a state broadcaster has far more political sensitivity) it probably wouldn't have been so much of an issue in the UK.

Most of his "controversies" would not even be news in the US. A person on a humorous show cracking a racial/ethnic joke is on TV every night.

We have nothing like OFCOM where you could actually get in trouble with the government for being highly offensive either.

And celebrities behaving badly is typical, so assaulting someone probably wouldn't lead to any major public outcry for his firing. It's not as though Sean Penn has trouble finding work.

foldr13• 11 years ago

How do you square these claims with the public outcry over a brief glimpse of Jannet Jackson's tit? There are plenty of examples of similar controversies in the U.S. media.

theorique• 11 years ago

One hopes its something reasonable like: "If you don't like the show, don't watch it."

ptaipale8• 11 years ago

"This show was tested on animals. They didn't understand it."

richoakley• 11 years ago

In the same way as House of Cards isn't exclusive to Netflix, "Top Gear 2.0" will be sold to multiple broadcasters and distributors all over the world.

Top Gear was worth about $80m a year to the BBC in selling the series globally.

surge2• 11 years ago

Now if only they'd fix their apps so A) could easily find shows they offer B) won't play a video and just shows a spinning circle if the app sits idle for 5 minutes or just finished playing another video and going to the next episode (always have to restart the app to fix it, happens on PS3/4 and Roku). I have a great experience with Netflix, YouTube, even CrunchyRoll (for my anime watching kid) and every other video platform.

I want to use their app more, I even buy seasons of shows off of it, but the persistent problems make me hesitant to buy more.

tiernano• 11 years ago

Feeling half and half on this... Good cause the lads are back... Bad because its Amazon Prime... I'm an Amazon Prime customer, but live in Ireland... Which means i can get stuff delivered (with the help of a UK address) for free, but i cant stream content... Keeps telling me about "Licensing issues". So, VPN will need to be used then...

samch• 11 years ago

"Amazon can also license rights to the show to broadcasters or streaming services in other territories around the world where Prime video isn’t available."

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2015/07/30/former-top-gear-ho...

andy_ppp• 11 years ago

I love this mockery of Top Gear by Stewart Lee...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7CnMQ4L9Pc

SCAQTony• 11 years ago

Everybody loses with the Clarkson fiasco. The Amazon deal will garner fewer viewers and lack the production quality that the BBC offers. The BBC reboot will have fewer viewers (from what I am told by British friends) and lack the brand personality of the former three hosts.

Perhaps this could be likened to Howard Stern moving to satellite radio. Is he as popular as he was when he was "free." The once self-declared "king of all media" is rarely talked about now.

Amazon Sign Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May

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