Decline of Top Gear under Nine's mismanagement

[DiscoMick]

I thought the following piece from Crikey might interest you:

Top Gear wanes in value for Nine. The BBC and the Nine Network have radically recast their agreement for telecasting the top-rating (or formerly top-rating) Top Gear. Gone from the new agreement is any talk of a local version, as there was with SBS and the first agreement with Nine signed several years ago. Gone also is any exclusivity that Nine had to broadcast fresh episodes of the program in Australia, before the BBC could on its Knowledge channel on Foxtel.
Nine will now have to wait until each fresh episode of the program has aired on pay-TV in Australia, a big comedown for Nine and a sign of penny pinching as revenues and profits fall and the ownership outlook clouds. The original agreement with Nine also included rights to the Top Gear archive (which Nine uses on its digital GO channel). That also includes the rights to the US Top Gear which is a dreadful piece of television, as clunky as the Australian versions.
The original agreement was said to have cost Nine between $18 and $20 million because of the rights to the back catalogue of old programs and the exclusivity for each new episode. So the new agreement -- each new episode will air on the BBC Knowledge channel on Foxtel before screening on Nine -- is considerably higher than that high-cost deal. And Nine will have to wait eight weeks after the episode has screened on BBC Knowledge. That is likely to see Nine accumulate a small bank of episodes so it can launch them and run in a small season.
Meanwhile, BBC Worldwide is in the early stages of sorting out the future of the joint venture with ACP Magazines covering the publishing of Top Gear magazine in Australasia in the wake of the proposed sale of ACP to Bauer of Germany. Baurer is not a BBC rights holder anywhere in the world, so there will have to be negotiations to formalise that arrangement. -- Glenn Dyer

[wagoo]

Channel 9 ? Sounds like Television. Oh yes i remember Television! I've got one in the corner somewhere. Must give it another chance sometime.
Bill.

[MR LR]

They lost me to the Internet a long time ago, no other channel manages to turn a 52 minute show into 90 minutes of tv two months after it premiered, bunch of dingleberries.

[p38arover]

I stopped watching it after it went to Ch 9. They ruined it.

[superquag]

Just got fed-up with that Clarkson bloke... and his biased opinions.

- and the endless, inane adverts !

ABC iView and SBS On-Demand, much better !

[Disco Muppet]

Jeremy Clarkson is the biggest ******, can't stand him.

[Landy Smurf]

i love top gear but i never seem to be in front of the tv when it is on. i too think it was better on sbs from memory it was on saturdays at 730pm

[DiscoMick]

Nine put so many ads. in that 50 mins turned into over 100 and it was really annoying so stopped watching it live and recorded it so I could skip thru. the ads.

[pando]

I just wait till it appears on the internet, even iTunes store had the complete 18th season available before nine had fully aired in oz, (well that i had seen, never saw the Bentley ep on TV) with no ads, and uncut, and in the right order.

And before the piracy high horse comes out I do go and buy the DVD once it is released, as I do with anything I watch that I like.

I really like the show, and don't even mind Clarkson. Opinionated? Wouldn't watch him if he wasn't as the show would end up like that god awful thing the bloke who used to be on Sale of the Century does.

Take his point of view or opinion on cars as gospel, I think not.

Find his writing and presentation interesting and amusing, well yes.

[Homestar]

Just got fed-up with that Clarkson bloke... and his biased opinions.

- and the endless, inane adverts !

ABC iView and SBS On-Demand, much better !

I like his biased opinions on Range Rovers - he actually likes them.