Top Gear presenters 'to sign new three-year contract'

Top Gear producer Andy Wilman admitted earlier this month that 2014 was “a horrible year” for the popular motoring series but, despite the show being beset with controversy, its presenters Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond are reportedly on the verge of signing a new three-year contract.

Last year saw Top Gear and Clarkson face heavy criticism following a series of gaffes. They sparked a riot when filming in Argentina as locals believed the number plate H982 FKL, which was on Clarkson’s Porsche, was a jibe against the Falklands War.

Clarkson also found himself in trouble for using two racial slurs over the course of the series.

But, despite these events, BBC director-general Tony Hall has stated that he’s unwilling to cancel the series.

“It’s a programme loads of people love and it’s important the BBC doesn’t have just one voice,” he said in an interview with the Radio Times.

The presenters’ lucrative contracts are due to expire in April. Clarkson himself receives £1 million as well an additional seven-figure fee from BBC Worldwide.

According to a report by the Daily Mirror, the programme and its presenters are on the verge of renewing their contract which will run for three years for an as-yet undisclosed sum.

The show’s 22nd series began on Sunday and was aired simultaneously across 50 countries.

Petrolheads all over, ladies and gents that enjoyed Top Gear's "ambitious but rubbish" take on all things automotive, it pains us to announce that Jeremy Clarkson calls it quits in his column in The Sun.

In a piece titled "So we lose the tiger... but gain acid-spit snail," Jeremy Clarkson talks about nature's battle against extinction and the future of the Top Gear trio. Without further ado, this is how Jezza broke the silence in his most recent column for the tabloid:

"I THINK it’s fair to say that nature made a mistake when it invented the dinosaur. It was too big, too violent and with such small and puny arms it was never going to be able to operate heavy machinery or even enjoy a bit of special “me” time." Pretty easy to understand, but we haven't even got to the most tear-jearking part yet.

“All the dinosaurs died and now, years later, no-one mourns their passing. These big, imposing creatures have no place in a world which has moved on.” What these two lines point at is the dying of Top Gear as a show and how the presenter will have to move on.

Despite 880,000-plus signatures for the #BringBackClarkson petition, Jezza suggests that all our efforts were in vain: “You can start as many campaigns as you like and call on the support of politicians from all sides, but the day must come when you have to wave goodbye to the big monsters, and move on.”

This is the end and we can't do anything about it...

Fingers crossed other British broadcasting companies will bite his arm off and Clarkson will convice May and Hammond to start a new motoring show from square one. It will be hard to convince those two to jump on the bandwagon, but it won't be impossible.

Even if not for May and Hammond, if Jeremy will make a pay-per-view YouTube channel and continue filming car reviews, it'll still be enough to soothe our fevered petrolhead brows. Best of luck, Jezza!
UPDATE: Captain Slow confirmed that Top Gear is kaput in a not-so-cryptic manner.

UPDATE 2: The Mirror reports that "Jeremy Clarkson called Top Gear producer Oisin Tymon 'a lazy Irish ****," and that "Clarkson ranted for half an hour then punched him in the mouth - he was bleeding and dizzy so he had to go to hospital." In related Jeremy Clarkson news, bbc.co.uk was offline this afternoon, possibly because digital protest group Anonymous threatened an attack on the site a few days ago.

UPDATE3: Clarkson was reportedly involved in filming for BBC rival Channel 4, with a new "Full Throttle" show on its way. So; it's been a week, and still no answer. How exactly do you pronounce 'fracas'? — James May (@MrJamesMay) March 14, 2015
Clever letter on the #jeremyclarkson controversy in today's @FT #justasking pic.twitter.com/tiftHXS4wW — Dearbhail McDonald (@DearbhailDibs) March 14, 2015

Top Gear And Jeremy Clarkson: Here's What I Saw When I Worked On The Show

Context: Jeremy Clarkson has been suspended from Top Gear, the BBC’s motoring show, and one of its biggest exports. The reason? It is claimed he had a “fracas” with a producer which some British papers are claiming was physical. As a result of his suspension, Top Gear’s current run has been halted, and the show may lose its main host.

Before I became a technology journalist I worked at the BBC for many years. During that time I was lucky enough to work on Top Gear. My job was to maintain the BBC’s official website. In the past I haven’t written much about my time there, but now seems like as good a time as any to talk about what it is like to work on Top Gear.

To do my job I used to go to the Top Gear studio near Guildford. Recording tended to start around 2pm and would usually run for a few hours. During this time everyone is kept in a large aircraft hangar at Dunsfold Park. It’s too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter, which is why you see people either dressed in thick coats, or sweating in virtually nothing. The shooting is bearable for the public because there are nice cars, and the hosts chat with them. This is a total rarity in TV, but if you go to a Top Gear recording, you will be able to talk to the presenters.

So, what of those guys Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond? Well, I can only speak about my experience, but all of them were terrific to me. James May once looked like he’d shoot me when I laughed at something he said about his cat. I thought he was joking, he wasn’t.

Of course there were stories of some horror from other members of the production team. I remember one of the early US shoots being a particular nightmare, with some crew members complaining that Jeremy was insisting on things being done his way, and that led to the crew being exhausted and not stopping for food when they needed it. Jeremy also wanted to put a dead cow on the roof of the car, and the results of that were pretty grim.

Even so, most people were not overly critical of Clarkson, even though he was sometimes belligerent and hard to manage – most talent can be, especially at his level. And it is worth mentioning that Top Gear in its current form was Clarkson’s show, his format an idea that he worked on with Andy Wilman to revitalise one of the BBC’s well-known but very tired brands.

Here’s what’s most striking about the Top Gear team though: it’s a family. I’ve worked on lots of TV productions over the years. Mostly, I’ve done this as web support, so I’ve had a slightly different take to those actually producing the shows. Top Gear was one of the most amazingly welcoming and friendly teams I’ve ever encountered.

Chief among the people who was welcoming is the producer that it is alleged Clarkson had an argument with. Back then Oisin Tymon was more junior, but just utterly lovely to me, and everyone else. The fact that he’s been involved for so long makes this bust up seem even more odd. I started on Top Gear when the show was in its third season in 2003, Oisin either started around then, or very slightly after. He’s being working with Clarkson now for more than 10 years.

It’s the team aspect of this that makes the story of Jeremy arguing with, and then if British press reports are to be believed, hitting Tymon. Jeremy was always very protective of the team, and you can see this in the interviews he gave following the crew’s swift exit from Argentina recently where he was genuinely concerned for the people hurt.

While I wouldn’t seek to suggest there’s ever an excuse for hitting someone, I also know from experience that, if you do, an apology can often sort the problem out. I don’t know about how close Clarkson and Tymon are. My experience with the producers was that they were pretty involved with the on-screen talent. It may be that there was a fight, it was resolved between the two of them but someone else reported it.

What was the worst thing that I ever saw Jeremy Clarkson do in the time I worked there? Not much, he hated the CD I left in the rental car I lent him to drive to the test track, and when I jokingly asked him what he thought, he declared with an expletive that he wasn’t a fan. I didn’t expect anything else really.

One thing’s for sure, whatever did or did not happen, Clarkson will have received phone calls from May, Hammond and the show’s executive producer Andy Wilman, calling him every name under the sun. Don’t forget, for all the surface calm that Clarkson is putting out on Twitter at the moment, a whole industry exists around Top Gear. It’s worth £50million to the BBC in foreign revenue and spin-offs. It’s the world’s largest factual TV show, and it’s shown all over the world and is frequently one of the most-downloaded TV shows online.

The team, with whom Clarkson is close, also stand to lose their jobs and the BBC one of its highest rated TV shows. That said, if someone was punched it puts the BBC in a near-impossible situation. It can’t very well keep him, while telling other staff that if they are involved in a physical altercation they will be immediately dismissed.

My time at Top Gear is among my happiest memories, even including the time that I had an hour-long phone call from Andy Wilman that got fairly heated over an broken online vote. That’s a story for another day though. Top Gear production team members are, and always have been, at the top of their professional game and friendly with it.

And that leads me to an odd conclusion. Namely, that perhaps those involved – like Clarkson – are bored. The show has run for longer than anyone, including them, expected. Bored people can, sometimes, look for ways to put an end to things, and if Jeremy wants to go and work for Sky making a different show, then belligerently arguing with the BBC and his producers is one way to get out. It’s also important to note that all three presenters were weeks off signing new contracts that would lock them into the show for three more years.

Jeremy Clarkson @JeremyClarkson · Feb 25

Wanted: new presenter for Top Gear. Applicant should be old, badly dressed and pedantic but capable of getting to work on time.

Last week, the BBC released a statement about the current series of Top Gear, confirming that last night’s show (15th March) was to be postponed following an incident during production.

The incident in question is currently being investigated and Ken MacQuarrie, the director of BBC Scotland, has been appointed to lead this process.

We can now confirm that Top Gear will not be back in the studio this week and, as such, the episode due for broadcast this Sunday night (22nd March) will also be postponed pending the outcome of the investigation.

We will bring you more news as soon as we have it.