The Grand Tour..

[alchresearch]

They didn't even really have a problem

 

They did - they were running out of ideas and losing viewers under Clarkson.

 

Until Evans drove away more viewers, the ratings for the final series with Clarkson in it were the lowest since it was reinvented back in 2002. It peaked a little for the last episode.

 

Their problem was that the "challenge" was the series finale highlight, but they then decided to do one every episode, and in order to make it better than the last it became more and more scripted and lost something.

Edited November 29, 2016 by alchresearch

[Beakerzoid]

 

Until Evans drove away more viewers, the ratings for the final series with Clarkson in it were the lowest since it was reinvented back in 2002. It peaked a little for the last episode.

 

 

The facts would beg to disagree with that assumption. They were pretty much on par with previous years (an average of 6.49 million which was the highest it has been since 2009), and were better than anything before 2007 (which was under 5 million per episode).

[melthebell]

i enjoyed the last episode, found the military challenge highly amusing but then i just find them 3 funny, and have zero interest in cars

[alchresearch]

The facts would beg to disagree with that assumption. They were pretty much on par with previous years (an average of 6.49 million which was the highest it has been since 2009), and were better than anything before 2007 (which was under 5 million per episode).

 

Not so. In 2013, the series opener:

 

Top Gear returned for a new series on BBC2 with nearly 5 million viewers, making it Sunday night's most popular programme on any channel outside of BBC1's Countryfile.

 

The motoring show starring Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, had 4.7 million viewers, a 20.3% share, between 8pm and 9pm.

 

But Top Gear's petrolheads proved no match for the rural charms of BBC1's Countryfile, which held onto number one spot with 5.4 million viewers, a 23.3% share, between 8pm and 9pm.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/jul/01/top-gear-return-jeremy-clarkson

 

Sadly the links charting the dropping viewing figures under Clarkson are hard to find as the Evans Top Gear ratings fill the search results.

[Beakerzoid]

Not so. In 2013, the series opener:

 

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/jul/01/top-gear-return-jeremy-clarkson

 

Sadly the links charting the dropping viewing figures under Clarkson are hard to find as the Evans Top Gear ratings fill the search results.

 

Not that hard to find figures http://www.barb.co.uk/viewing-data/weekly-top-30/

 

Just enter the criteria of 25th January 2015 - BBC2 Viewing figures for season opener for the final year with Jezza and the gang. Can work from there, or just use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Top_Gear_episodes#cite_note-BARB10-5 to see the work done for you (which you can verify by putting all the dates in the aforementioned link yourself if you are disbelieving of Wikipedia)

 

Curiously, your rebuttal didn't actually do anything to prove your claim that figures were dropping as you referenced 2013 opener, yet neglected that following seasons did better, thus were climbing again. Series 20 in 2013 was more just a blip in a generally consistent average.

[Funky_Gibbon]

It's not like the viewing figures in the UK were/are particularly important anyway. It was the resale value abroad that made the show so big. Countryfile can have however many millions of viewers in the UK but it's still not the money maker of the two shows.