Budget cuts for Top Gear UK
December 31, 2008 by Matt Brogan
The BBC has ordered Top Gear to ‘tone down’ the program’s world renowned signature car stunts in a bid to curtail the budget.
Inflation, the current economic situation and ever increasing utility bills are said to be driving cost cutting exercises throughout the BBC with Top Gear being no exception.
Despite a 30 percent cut in the program’s budget, a BBC spokesperson has said that “the next series would be as compelling and exciting as always.”
Andy Wilman, the channel’s executive producer, writes in his blog on the Top Gear fan site “No point in moaning about that. All shows are suffering and nobody’s got a pot to p— in any more anyway, so no reason why we shouldn’t suffer as well. Our problem though, is that there is no fat to trim off the show, in that we waste almost nothing behind the scenes and the old cliche of ‘every penny goes on screen’ is actually true.”
Top Gear attracts an audiences of up to eight-million each Sunday night in the UK alone, with each episode said to have a current budget of £200,000.
Despite the cuts Clarkson, 48, signed a lucrative contract earlier this year, reported to be worth $4.2 million a year, to present Top Gear.
Hammond, 39, and co-presenter James May, 45, also agreed to new deals worth $52,000 and $42,000 per show respectively.
Print it: 
This was inevitable due to “the unique way in which the BBC is funded” through the TV licence.
So they take away some of the expensive stunts, the chemistry and fun energy costs nothing. Why is Hammond worth more than James?
I wonder what the Australian version’s budget is :P 1/xxxxxx of that
It is to cover the cost of Richard’s hair product and teeth whitening stuff.
Hmm… “Hammond, 39, and co-presenter James May, 45, also agreed to new deals worth $52,000 and $42,000 per show respectively” Is that a typo??
Because $52K & 42K isn’t that much at all?? Unless it is in Pounds?
“Because $52K & 42K isn’t that much at all?? Unless it is in Pounds? ”
That’s Per Episode…
“Why is Hammond worth more than James?”
Hammond probably does more reviews and more of the daring, stupid stuff.
Why is Clarkson worth significantly more than Hammond and James combined?
No problem; more cheap car challenges. They are my favorite segments anyway.
no wonder james and hammond hates clarkson so much.
wonder if there’s sponsorship from the cars they endorse….
Hammond is worth more than James because more people will tune in to see him, plus he had a television career before Top Gear. James doesn’t have as much of an input on the show either, he rarely has his own segments and lets face it, when they have group challenges, he’s usually in the background or saying “oh, cock”.
^^ Doubt it. The instant something like that occurred and was found out, Top Gear would lose all credibility. No amount of extra funding would be worth the loss in ratings. Second, Top Gear is Clarksons show, he presented the business case to the BBC to restart the show in 2001. Thats why he gets paid more, he writes a lot of the material and has much higher involvement in the creation of each episode. Second, Hammond and May’s pay is per episode, and is in pounds. Thirdly, its show biz, you get paid based on how indispensible you are. Clearly, Top Gear without Clarkson isn’t Top Gear, and its a fair point, May is probably the most dispensible of the three. He’s still getting paid nearly 800,000 pounds a year ($AU2 million) and that doesn’t include any other tv activities he does (which is quite a few).
They get paid well but that show is dangerous.
Did you see Clarkson driving the truck into the brick wall? He could have been killed. Hammond almost was as well recently.
Wonder what the Stig costs.
Perhaps he’ll need to cut back on his audio-books.
Maybe they could host the show in a warehouse……….
Why nobody mentioned good looking hilux at last picture?
Why?
ouch — budget cuts are definitely tough, i’m sure they will find creative ways to overcome it though!
For me, the show has always been about the personalities rather than the stunts or the cars. That’s probably why women love the show as much as men. That’s why TGAU was such a flop – the personalities repelled huge slabs of eager viewers. Now with JM taking over, people will watch again because of him; hopefully the other 2 will improve under JM’s tutillage.
The pay levels are not an issue – James gets less than Richard, but probably because he wants to commit less time to TG so he can pursue his other work. But it may be because he is the one that would be easiest to lose.
Jeremy is the show, so deserves the most pay.
Bloody accountants! take the funout of everything
I like Clarkson alot but can’t see how he’s woth ten times as much as the other two. Even at $52k/ep it only equates to half a mil a year considering Top Gear is generally only about 10 eps at max. Good money I agree but……