More Top Gear, less Chris Evans.
Extra Gear presenters Rory Reid & Chris Harris to feature more in the main event as Chris Evans faces reduced role.
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Defiant Top Gear host Chris Evans is to take a less prominent role in the series after viewing figures for the BBC show slumped to a new low.
Motoring journalists Rory Reid and Chris Harris, who host spin-off show Extra Gear, will be upgraded to weekly appearances after receiving positive fan reviews.
Evans and Matt LeBlanc will continue to anchor the studio recording.
The third episode drew just 2.37 million UK viewers, down nearly half a million on the previous week, the second-lowest audience figures since Jeremy Clarkson revived the motoring show, in 2002.
The Telegraph reports that Evans’s debut episode was rated by viewers as the worst quality show on terrestrial television on the weekend that it aired, with an appreciation index (AI) score of just 60 out of 100, compared to an average of around 82 for a BBC Two programme.
This week Rory Reid wrote on Twitter: “We are on the main show every Sunday now.”
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4 Responses
Chris Evans is on too much but i think Matt LeBlanc is good for the show.
Reid and Harris both reviewed cars on the last ep (e3). I assumed that Harris had been given the keys to the £5M Ferrari tdf because insurance wouldn’t cover Evans or Le Blanc but when I saw Reid I thought it might have been a response to audience reactions.
The next ep is filmed before the prev one airs so e3 was the earliest that they could make any adjustments based reception. The situation is complicated in the UK by the fact that e3 was broadcast at the same time as the Germany football match in the Euros and future eps will also clash with matches.
I’ve watched all 3 episodes and have to agree Chris Evans doesn’t work. Matt LeBlanc is proving to be the star of the show for me. I find Chris Harris a bit odd, perhaps putting Sabine or Eddie Jordan more front and centre would be a better move, at least internationally, as those faces are more well known. Sabine in particular comes across very natural.
I watched the first two episodes, but that will do me. I’d rather watch repeats of the old show.