TOP GEAR has been cancelled..

First, Top Gear has little to do with BBC America (Discovery Channel is linked to BBC America), but is a syndicated show produced by BBC2 in the UK; they may be contacted at their e-mail: [email protected]

Second, I think our case needs to be made with The Discovery Channel who licensed the show for the US and probably walked away due to poor ratings. Top Gear is not NASCAR, it’s not "let's build another chopper and scream at each other" and it’s not "let’s get a torch and hack-up another car into some useless piece of junk.”

I also suggest we make our case with John S. Hendricks who is a serious gear head (bought several $M of cars for his Colorado museum last year) and an investor in the Discovery Channel through Discovery Communicatons.

Mr. John S. Hendricks
Founder and Chairman
Discovery Communications
One Discovery Place
Silver Spring, MD 20910

 

What kind've ratings do you expect on the Discovery channel at 1am at night, once a week.....

 

Yea it comes on at 10pm on the east coast Weds nights. Sometimes have a hard time staying awake to watch the whole show. A different time slot would help it I beleive. Maybe Sunday night at 9pm or something....

 

Example, Speed once was good, now it is NASCAR over and over and over. I traveled to Road Atlanta for ALMS Petet LeMans, and was eager to see the reruns latter, NOTHING!

Marketing is/Ratings are everything...? Road raceing is so much more interesting. True it is not the stadium effect of modern day chariot drivers, All the cars look the same, no variety at all. Close racing, lots of wrecks, but still boring. Why can't F1, ALMS, or the other forms of racing excell in the US like NASCAR? Look at what happened to CANAM...

 

I am suprised the ratings are poor. All of my friends watch and my wife even finds it entertaining. Hopefully an email campaign will enable them to put the show back on.

 

We don't even get it in Canada ...

 

Its a very entertaining show. Anyone know the ACTUAL ratings? I am suprised they are low - most gearheads I know watch or record the show. I can't imagine the ratings are worse than 5th gear, which is now all re-runs...

 

You guys have electricity and TV's in Canada???

 

have you tasted the water there????????..............jk

 

What ? You're not proud to be an American ?!?

 

I sent them an email about a month and a half about, BEGGING them to keep it going. I told them how regardless of what the rating were, all the BBs I go to "buzz" everyday about the show. I guess my one email wan't enough.

They spent too much time and money on Americanizing it. Just show the British version. I don't need a subtitle converting British pricing (including exchange rates and VAT) to USD. I don't need them to re-shoot their studio scenes.

Remaking the show makes it less profitiable than Pimp My Trailer which only requires a ditzy blond with a hammer and a double wide, so something unique and great like Top Gear gets cancelled. :X

 

No, but we have pretty powerful binoculars. With clear skies, I can see pretty much any TV show in NY state.

 

Is there not some way to get the actual show over the net? That may be the only answer now.

 

*cough* http://www.mininova.org/search/?search=top+gear *cough*
Find yourself BitComet or similar, and you're good to go. I have season 2, 4, 5 and 6 complete on DVDs thanks to that ...

 

I don't particularly like it because it's not that good, at least compared to the original. I find it a half-assed attempt to scale it down for american audiences to bring in some quick $

 

Outstanding! Thanks for the link

 

Of course ratings determine revenue. Discovery may feel that they can put something else in the time slot that will create more profits. I never saw Top Gear lasting too long really, they are running out of cars to test drive. It seems Top Gear is based on current production model exotics, how many of these exist? Top Gear also seems to have issues with getting cars to drive, like that Enzo episode. If you owned a Saleem 7, would you lend it to Top Gear to max out and potentially crash?

 

You have a point, but there are new episodes are airing in the UK right now. Surprisingly I enjoy the other segments just as much as the exotic car reviews, the $1,500 Porsche Challenge was hysterical!

 

That clip was a CLASSIC! My favorite segment of all time I think

 

Well, word has it that Discovery might be working on their own version of the show. As technically I believe BBC still owns the rights to the orginal Top Gear it's not profitable to keep airing the show when they can make their own and all profits benefit them (Discovery). If I hear any more useful info from those "in the know" I'll let ya'll know

 

Well, how much of it was that Fifth Gear is a slightly better (IMHO) show going after the same demographic?

I agree that the original British versions should run unaltered, as I get the British humor (a strong point for Top Gear). I enjoy them both, and watch them all.

 

That's terrible.

 

I downloaded all 6 seasons this past summer. I definitely prefer the UK version and will continue to download until they show a real episode here in the US within a week of the original airing in the UK.

 

Where are you downloading from?