Looks like they’re getting the trio back together and giving them a decent budget and total control over their own content. I wonder how this affects the international audience - I don’t know how widespread amazon prime is, or if they’ll do some other distribution in foreign markets.
It’s a pretty big coup for amazon. They want to promote their streaming service, and Top Gear has one of the best budget to viewer ratios in all of television. I was surprised to learn that a whole season costs around $10-12m to produce, which seems crazy cheap. There are US TV shows that cost that much per episode. And for that, Amazon gets a huge instant international audience.
Wikipedia says that Amazon Instant Video is available in the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Austria and Germany. They might use this opportunity to expand to other countries. And of course they could sell the program to local broadcasters or cable outlets in countries where their service is not available. I believe the BBC program was watched in dozens of countries.
Business Insider says Amazon is giving them a $250 million budget for 3 seasons. If that previous $10-12 million number is correct, that’s a huge increase from what the BBC was giving them.
One of the things they did on Top Gear was to make fun of the BBC, particularly the bureaucracy inherent in such a large governmental organization. So will they be making fun of Amazon and/or Jeff Bezos?
They had quite a lot of infrastructure already in place; things like the studio, the track, and the top secret development centre on the B2707 just outside Worcestershire. What they didn’t have, they had the pull of the BBC to get people to let them use. Plus, they’ll need a new Stig, and those don’t come cheap. I think they grow them in vats.
I’m a Murrican totally unfamiliar with this show or these people, but I sometimes read UK tabloid web sites (or at least the headings). I was always reading things like “Top Bosses Warn Clarkson One More Racist Remark and He Gets Sacked” and then “Clarkson Did So and So, Gets Sacked.” Can Amazon prime get the Dukes of Hazard and give Hulk Hogan a show?
