Geddon

Someting thats been bugging me for ages:

Who pays for everything in Top Gear?

For instance all the boat stuff in tonight's episode? £13k aint cheap for an outboard as well as all the cars in the first place....and last week's Konnnnnissseggggg.

Surely not just the TV licence?

NotoriousREV

TV Licence plus sales of TV programmes around the world

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Not to forgot the many trips to Iceland

Thanks to the "unique" way the BBC is funded.

Top gear makes the license fee actually worth paying

watto52

its not just top gear wasting our money.What about bargain hunt?
virtually every episode £600 goes down the pissing drain

audi_boiz

what about deal or no deal then? wheres all that money comin from? haha

watto52

advertising/sponsers

pslewis

I was thinking the same ...... a £13k Outboard Engine + that other 2.3 outboard at £400!!

It's a disgraceful waste of public money!!

Was good tele all the same

And those 3 earn probably £15,000 each per episode .... so, in the scheme of things ....

Pete

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Although both outboards are salavgeable, not the first time I've seen an outboard injest a bit of water

Although a 225 VTEC Well, as long as the bores were squirted with WD40, a oil change and quick run up as soon as it was pulled out the water it'll be fine. Not as if we're talking about hydrolock here.

oh, and hi-lux wouldn't start as it sounded like it was missing either its injectors or glowplugs and thus had zero compression.

pslewis

Don't let the ***** get hold of this story ....... they'll start spouting some ****-and-bull story about how the Outboard Engines now have Bore-Wash!!!!

Pete

HankScorpio

The BBC syndicate the program globally, I'm sure it pays for itself as well as several episodes of songs of praise and antique roadshow, in fact probably the rest of the sundat schedule.

Jaybird-UK

Top Gear is a major winner for the BBC, it is sold around the world as well as Magazine sales.

How much do you think programs like the Blue Planet cost huh?
What about the money the BBC spends on sport?

In short, yes its the TV licence that pays for it, If you had your way Geddon we'd have another channel 5 on our hands.....

mad_dr

I must have missed something - I didn't read into Geddon's post that he was Anti-Top Gear, just curious about how it was funded.

Sticky Stuff

At least there's no annoying 'Call this premium rate number...' 'competition' every 4 minutes (5th Gear, anyone?)

In relation to the cost of producing the program in it's entirety I reckon the price of the outboard would be a drop in the ocean (groan )

King RA

You serouisly think they pay for cars like the konensisghfsjsdk to be on?? The car manufacturers GIVE them the cars to spunk round the track. A sports manufacturer WANTS their car to be top, much kudos all round if it is, more kudos = more sales.

I imagine the production costs of top gear are alot lower than the cr4p they put on BBC1 full of high earning celebraties.

Chris L

Top Gear is one of the most profitable series that the BBC make. It is sold to a huge number of countries (you can even see it on the Heathrow Express), that's why the BBC put up with Clarkson and his slightly non-pc views (long may they continue) If you look at the format, it is designed so that it can be easily split to make way for ad breaks.

It has a massive global audience, I bet car manufacturers are falling over themselves to get on the programme!

Holy Ghost

**

you got there first. every car test driven comes at no charge courtesy of the manufacturers; that boat engine may have cost £13K if you bought it but they only 'borrowed' it in return for a couple of minutes of air time and a name check for a guy that clarkson knows personally.

product placement and PR means they get all this stuff for free. the beeb simply pays the production company a contractual set fee for the series. anything and everything that goes in each show comes out of that fee, regardless - from trips to iceland to the last crisp in the canteen.

TG is managed through BBC Worldwide which is a self-funded, fully commercial for-profit division that receives no money from the licence payer. TG is a huge money-spinner and is the BBC's most successful single programme export, sold as it is to over 100 countries.

trust an ill-informed muppet like pslewis to think we pay for it...

GrollySTI

ermmm....think it was more of a case of who pays for the damage - remember the stig lost it at high speed and did a fair amount of damage.

King RA

Well considering they want to put a spoiler and give it back to them, who do you think??

a1oku

the cost of producing tv shows is horrendous.15 grand for the outboard is a drop in the lake!!!as already mentioned the prog is syndicated and pays for itself many times over esp repeats on other satellite channels





uote=Geddon]Someting thats been bugging me for ages:

Who pays for everything in Top Gear?

For instance all the boat stuff in tonight's episode? £13k aint cheap for an outboard as well as all the cars in the first place....and last week's Konnnnnissseggggg.

Surely not just the TV licence?[/quote]

Leslie

I'd be surprised if the outboard owner hadn't sealed up the inlets before they sunk it.

Les

Chris L

Even if they inflicted 10 grands worth of damage to the Konnigsegg - it's still nothing compared to what they would have to pay for normal advertising. Most high end glossy mags will be charging £25000+ per page. The kind of coverage that Konnigsegg gets from being on Top Gear is worth so much more. It's the exact same reason why so many companies are prepared to spend millions sponsoring F1 teams - the global exposure is huge.

astraboy

Exactly. If you think anything you see on top gear isnt pre-planned to go exactly that way then you're very much mistaken.
Kind of like those "races" which are composed of numerous high speed flybys and tracking shots. You think they say "Right, stop the race, we need a few more shots, then we can restart it"
Good telly, just very well planned and executed good telly.
astraboy.

StickyMicky

people ringing up to try and win cash

Geddon

Sorry if some people thought i was critical of how much money was spent.
I love the show too and is the highlight of my TV weekly watching

It was just something I wondered about

I never really considered the money they get back from overseas sales.

Tidgy

the only car that has had major damage done to it during test in recent series is as mentioned the koniseggggggggggggggggg, they said the stig said he didn't dare push any harder incase he went off, but koniseggggg had said they wanted to see what realy happened if he pushed full go, so they'll be picking up the tab.

on another note you might say, y would a company want to risk smashing a several hundred grand car up? free 100% testing by a pro driver in a controled manner is worth its weight in gold, imagine a slightly less experianced driver on the road pushing it and comming off, they be hell to pay when law suits came in

Neanderthal

iTrader: (6)

I'd gladly let them spend my licence money on TG rather than ANYTHING to do with Graham Norton and a crappy talk show that Davina does.

Nexuas

Exactly they then get another 15 minutes of worldwide airtime for the sake of a few bits of fibreglass, which if sucessful they will add £10000 to the cost of the car by having it as an optional extra, more advertising, the chance to move higher up the power laptimes, it is a win, win, win situation for the car company.

Nexuas

If I remember right did not one british car show write off a £250,000 supercar, but the car compnay was quoted as saying, "£250,000 is small change compared to the £1million worth of advertising we got from it" They were getting full page atricales in most of the british press and TV coverage across the globe for this.

A couple of series ago they CRASHED a Renault megane Senic ON PURPOSE at 30MPH, just to show how you would get out with no major damage. Why did Renault let them do that? BECAUSE IT WOULD SELL HUNDREDS MORE CARS!!!

Brendan Hughes

From Wikipedia:
The annual Super Bowl football game in the United States is known as much for its commercial advertisements as for the game itself, and the average cost of a single thirty-second TV spot during this game has reached $2.5 million (as of 2006).

CrisPDuk

IIRC He didn't do that much damage, except to the paintwork and maybe a couple of supsension components, which considering the speed he went off at was pretty impressive

I bet they did a damned sight more damage to the Vanquish that was put off in the same place in the first series