BBC Suspends Jeremy Clarkson, Host of ‘Top Gear,’ After String of Warnings

[Scott5114]

The loss of Top Gear and the loss of the license fees of a few people (who'd have to give up television or face a civil lawsuit from the BBC. Plus the threatening letters about detector vans...) will cost the BBC quite a bit,

Hang on, the BBC actually actively pursues legal action against people without TV licences? I always figured the cases would be too numerous, and the difficulty of obtaining proof too great, for that to happen. Does the BBC have the legal authority to enter homes in cases of suspected non-compliance?

Do you have to have a licence to own a physical television, or can you cancel the licence and just use it to watch Netflix instead (like many Americans have done with cable TV)? For instance, we recently purchased a new TV, but the only channels it's displayed so far are HDMI inputs from our PlayStation (which we use for Netflix as well as games) and our Wii U. I would be kind of upset if I still had to pay BBC for such an arrangement when I don't even have any way of receiving their programming.

[GCrites]

Clarkson has positive things to say about some American cars. He liked this:



and he also bought a Ford GT if I remember right.

[GCrites]

The loss of Top Gear and the loss of the license fees of a few people (who'd have to give up television or face a civil lawsuit from the BBC. Plus the threatening letters about detector vans...) will cost the BBC quite a bit,

Hang on, the BBC actually actively pursues legal action against people without TV licences? I always figured the cases would be too numerous, and the difficulty of obtaining proof too great, for that to happen. Does the BBC have the legal authority to enter homes in cases of suspected non-compliance?

Do you have to have a licence to own a physical television, or can you cancel the licence and just use it to watch Netflix instead (like many Americans have done with cable TV)? For instance, we recently purchased a new TV, but the only channels it's displayed so far are HDMI inputs from our PlayStation (which we use for Netflix as well as games) and our Wii U. I would be kind of upset if I still had to pay BBC for such an arrangement when I don't even have any way of receiving their programming.

No no, they sneak 'round your house with a frequency sniffer to make sure you're not pulling in BBC frequencies with your rabbit ears.

[SteveG1988]

The loss of Top Gear and the loss of the license fees of a few people (who'd have to give up television or face a civil lawsuit from the BBC. Plus the threatening letters about detector vans...) will cost the BBC quite a bit,

Hang on, the BBC actually actively pursues legal action against people without TV licences? I always figured the cases would be too numerous, and the difficulty of obtaining proof too great, for that to happen. Does the BBC have the legal authority to enter homes in cases of suspected non-compliance?

Do you have to have a licence to own a physical television, or can you cancel the licence and just use it to watch Netflix instead (like many Americans have done with cable TV)? For instance, we recently purchased a new TV, but the only channels it's displayed so far are HDMI inputs from our PlayStation (which we use for Netflix as well as games) and our Wii U. I would be kind of upset if I still had to pay BBC for such an arrangement when I don't even have any way of receiving their programming.

No no, they sneak 'round your house with a frequency sniffer to make sure you're not pulling in BBC frequencies with your rabbit ears.

All seriousness, the BBC will look to see addresses that have not purchased the TV License and badger them until you pay up.

[english si]

Does the BBC have the legal authority to enter homes in cases of suspected non-compliance?

No they don't. But if you let them in, show them that you don't need to pay it, or pay it, then the matter is settled and the threatening letters stop.

Do you have to have a licence to own a physical television, or can you cancel the licence and just use it to watch Netflix instead (like many Americans have done with cable TV)? For instance, we recently purchased a new TV, but the only channels it's displayed so far are HDMI inputs from our PlayStation (which we use for Netflix as well as games) and our Wii U. I would be kind of upset if I still had to pay BBC for such an arrangement when I don't even have any way of receiving their programming.

TVs that can't receive broadcast television (eg not connected to an aerial, cable or dish) are exempt. You can even watch catchup TV on BBC iPlayer without a licence (but not live TV). If, however, you have the

No no, they sneak 'round your house with a frequency sniffer to make sure you're not pulling in BBC frequencies with your rabbit ears.

I used to think that was a joke, but they actually do have vans that drive around and detect that kind of things. I remember the student house I lived in where the renewal of the license slipped through the cracks when half the house changed, had the driver of one of these vans came round. He made up a nonsense reason to let us off the fine, having heard our story of forgetfulness (something about being able to park in the driveway), and taken our hundred pounds for the year.

All seriousness, the BBC will look to see addresses that have not purchased the TV License and badger them until you pay up.

Indeed. Oddly, when the detector van driver came around, we hadn't had a threatening letter.

When I lived in dorms, we almost all got a piece of post (while we were all in one building, every room had its own address and needed a separate license if it met the requirements) as most of us didn't have TVs, and only one or two people didn't have licenses. Actually, worse, we had them put under our doors, rather than in the office (where post went normally). Even the (the university out everyone living in its accommodation on the electoral roll) voting cards we all got were in the office, rather than under doors.

[cpzilliacus]

I believe, after a fight (not of the Clarkson sort), the execs mostly work in Salford rather than London now*.

I saw that someplace.  Might indeed have been the reference on Top Gear when they drove around the old BBC building.

The BBC gets over £100 million a year (from a billion pound turnover) from BBC Worldwide, which is their commercial subsidiary (merchandising, selling rights abroad, etc).

Wonder how much of that comes from BBC Americas?

Top Gear being the primary reason I watch that channel.

In the UK, BBC Worldwide owns 50% of UKTV, which has several genre-specific channels (Watch for populist tat of a variety of kinds, G.O.L.D. for Comedy, Dave for 'Men and Motors' (it's original name), Really for 'Womens Lifestyle', Drama for Drama, Alibi for crime drama, Yesterday for history documentaries/antiques shows, Eden for nature programmes, Home for home and garden programmes, and Good Food for cooking shows) that mostly air reruns of BBC shows, though other stuff - some original programming, some imported, mostly Channel 4 (Commercial network 49% owned by the BBC) reruns (and the odd ITV crime drama) - gets in. While Dave has reruns of TopGear (weekday daytimes), not having new episodes won't harm their revenue much as its not like people haven't seen them all before several times (they burn through about 2 season's worth of episodes a week, airing them twice, so the whole series airs twice each quarter. and it used to be more episodes per day!).

The loss of Top Gear and the loss of the license fees of a few people (who'd have to give up television or face a civil lawsuit from the BBC. Plus the threatening letters about detector vans...) will cost the BBC quite a bit, but not a huge amount given the size of the business they operate. There's quite a bit of fat being cut already, though, so it's not like they can just pull a making BBC3 (the youth orientated channel that spends more than half of its air time repeating programming from other times in the week) online-only out of the hat to make up the shortfall. Local Radio having more shared programming? More repeats on BBC2 and BBC4?

You are obviously much better-informed than I am (it's been quite a few years since I set foot on British territory).

*If you remember, Top Gear did some race at the empty 'Concrete Doughnut' that used to be the main studios and offices of the BBC in London.

Indeed.

You also point out something about Top Gear that made it so good - there is something memorable in very nearly every episode of that series (at least those that aired on BBC Americas).   That is impressive in and of itself.  I do not know if Clarkson, May and Hammond or the detested "producers" deserve credit for that.

[roadman]

I used to think that was a joke, but they actually do have vans that drive around and detect that kind of things. I remember the student house I lived in where the renewal of the license slipped through the cracks when half the house changed, had the driver of one of these vans came round. He made up a nonsense reason to let us off the fine, having heard our story of forgetfulness (something about being able to park in the driveway), and taken our hundred pounds for the year.

All seriousness, the BBC will look to see addresses that have not purchased the TV License and badger them until you pay up.

Indeed. Oddly, when the detector van driver came around, we hadn't had a threatening letter.

The BBC TV License Van was parodied in Monty Python's "cat detector van" bit from the "Fish License" sketch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmyHup4TpkU  at 2:54

[SteveG1988]

[SidS1045]

According to the Telegraph of London, Richard Hammond and James May have both so far refused to renew their contracts with the BBC.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/bbc/11506618/Top-Gear-Richard-Hammond-and-James-May-no-longer-work-for-the-BBC.html

[02 Park Ave]

Clarkson, Hammond, and May will be making a series of personal appearances later this year around the nation and internationally without any indication of BBC affinity.

[Takumi]

James has started a YouTube channel called "JM's unemployment tube".

[english si]

So the reboot of the franchise (the Top Gear franchise, not the Clarkson, Hammond and May franchise) happened tonight.

Matt le Blanc did well and hopefully he'll be a bigger part than he was tonight. Sabine Schmidt showed why she should be more heavily involved.

Chris Evans (the ginger tosser who married Rose from Dr Who when she was 17 and him 33, not Captain America) was terrible in the studio, despite that being his supposed forte: hopefully his charisma and talent comes out, his stress reduces and then the show improves. I'm not sure why he was so obviously stressed, or rather, I don't know why his talent overrode it - he took over from a legendary broadcaster who'd been doing the UK's most popular radio show for years and pulled it off, despite being a very controversial choice at the time.

It seemed to ape the Clarkson years somewhat (especially the dialogue), though with little tweaks - I'd imagine the change to something more 'them' will be fairly gradual over the course of the 6 episodes and probably take another season to get right (as did the old Top Gear transition from the old old Top Gear). The problem with that is that the mimicry didn't go down well.

[SidS1045]

As for the Clarkson/Hammond/May group, they are going to be producing a new program on Amazon Prime, executive-produced by their executive producer from Top Gear, Andy Wilman.  Starts sometime this coming Fall.

[Takumi]