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Detroit, 7:55 PM
Fri Dec 4
26 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/17/09
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11/16/09
[www.youtube.com] #topgear
11/16/09
[www.youtube.com] #topgear
11/16/09
Aww F*** #topgear
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If you watch and enjoy the torrent, please support the BBC. I pay for it cause I like Top Gear and Torchwood. Even though they're late on episodes, they're getting support. The only excuse Top Gear has for going off the air is Jeremy Clarkson's ego, not loss of money. #topgear
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You are saying don't torrent Top Gear, and instead petition NBC/CBS/ABC buy rights to Top Gear, or have BBC America show the current season (which they obviously know they could have marketed very well), all of which has been attempted.
ABC tried to buy Top Gear's US rights and the amount the BBC was looking to charge for those rights would have cost them (in the first season) about 130% MORE than what they valued the same season of "Lost" at. This was in 2006/2007. (Granted, it was for the rights to all seasons, but they didn't expect much from running old episodes because of the nature of the subject matter)
Then NBC contracted for Top Gear America, and one of the stipulations (which I heard from the same ABC guy) was that BBC's Top Gear couldn't be shown "live season" in the US. As far as I know, because that contract is still valid (NBC didn't surrender the rights, they just shelved it), we will not be getting the "live season" of Top Gear in the US other than by torrent. Petition or not.
Hey, look, I can READ and WRITE! #topgear
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It so happens that they both result in the same thing. #topgear
11/16/09
.. #topgear
11/16/09
You watch the last 5 minutes of this episode and tell me that it was uninteresting, I'd break your nose for lying. #topgear
11/15/09
I've been planning and writing and thinking about this deeply. Simply put, money and sponsors are the mother's milk for a network. The revenue from advertising go to new programming, overhead, salaries and other expenses. The networks can't air the show because it may offend sponsors such as Chevrolet. He who pays the piper calls the tune. To contort to avoid offending sponsors would harm everything about Top Gear that we've come to know and love. An American version of Top Gear would be forever compared to the original, which will offend purists and alienate the fans; for example, compare the response of original Battlestar Galactica fans to the recent adaptation.
More importantly, would Top Gear even attract enough advertising money, particularly if the automakers are offended by a poor review? How would the local network affiliates accept the show?
The advertising ratings are determined by eyeballs watching both the shows and the commercials. You need the live program rating (as the program is being aired live), live-plus-same-day rating (program is DVR'd, watched same day), live-plus-seven-days (same, but over course of a week) and the important commercial-plus-three rating. The CP3 rating measures the commercials to see how many people watched to determine advertising rates.
If you don't think money doesn't matter, take a look at Emily's Reasons Why Not. It was a 2006 dramedy starring Heather Graham and was cancelled after one episode which attracted only 6.2 million viewers. ABC was said to have spent millions on promotion, including airtime, billboards and radio ads. While the situation may not be analogous, any network version of Top Gear must beat dominate other shows in it's time slot to justify the expense of production which could easily be very costly.
Furthermore, it is unlikely that the BBC original Top Gear will ever air on any American commercial network. The guys only make less than a dozen episodes per year and a network requires around 22 episodes per season.
An American adaptation of Top Gear similar to the aborted NBC version will need this many episodes and after a while, the show will jump the shark and lose in quality. While the stunts and gags will be funny for a while, eventually the writers and hosts burn out after four or five years; see Aaron Sorkin leaving The West Wing by season five after writing practically each episode himself. Or watch the first five years of SNL when the crew fell apart on drugs or watch David E. Kelley's Boston Legal which ended in 2008 after descending into catchphrases and characters turn into cartoons.
The best solution to this is simple: put Top Gear on PBS. Here are five reasons:
1. PBS is mostly commercial free and does not depend as heavily on corporate sponsorship like the big three networks. Consequently, PBS would be (mostly) free from retribution from, say, General Motors, if the Top Gear crew rips the Chevy Aveo (and rightfully so). Furthermore, commercials won't interrupt the show as it would on the networks or on cable; both PBS and the BBC are commercial free, making it easier to plug in BBC episodes onto PBS. Finally, being on PBS, the show would provide a relatively neutral stage to test cars.
2. PBS has had a long history of importing British television to America from Masterpiece Theater to Doctor Who. Even some original programming on PBS was based on the British; for example, Frontier House was based on the The 1900 House according to Wikipedia.
3. Top Gear would probably be an excellent addition to the current primetime lineup on PBS of Antiques Roadshow and documentaries. It would also be better than PBS's current car show, Motorweek.
4. Top Gear in Britain has a season, a "series," of usually less than a dozen episodes; series 13 had only seven episodes. An American television network would usually need twenty or so episodes from September to June and simply airing UK Top Gear in the US would not be easy. An American version of Top Gear would need at least 22 episodes per season. To date, there has only been only 111 episodes of Top Gear (original).
5. NBC (and any other commercial network) will probably screw it up. #topgear
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[www.suzukiauto.com]
Or rather. Could.
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