0/5

Hoon TV

Updated: While TT has a go at Nine's new Top Gear brand, now ACA is under scrutiny about its use of a hoon driver video.

Last night both A Current Affair and Today Tonight had a story on “Carlo the Car Hoon.” Both showed footage of a young driver “drifting” in his high speed car on public roads -clearly an unsafe menace and perfect vision for a juicy story.

In the footage, “Carlo” told Freehand (Productions) he wanted to be Australia’s very own Stig. Freehand produced the two local versions of Top Gear for SBS (how old is this footage, it was 2 yrs ago SBS was calling for cast?).

Both shows also took a different editorial tone to the same story.

ACA’s Tom Steinfort said the footage was provided by “outraged members of a motorsports group who thought the man was behaving like a lunatic.”

ACA used the driver’s first name, concealed his surname and showed his number plate in an effort to catch him. A NSW superintendent also had plenty to say about the idiotic behaviour on state roads.

Today Tonight used the same footage as a basis for a story attacking Top Gear. Experts spoke about how shows like this encouraged irresponsible and hoon-like behaviour. It neglected to note that Top Gear (about to premiere on Nine) films all its stunts in controlled, legal situations and the Stig’s speed tests are on closed circuits -a bit like the V8 Supercars that Seven shows.

Media Watch is back on air next Monday everyone.

Updated: Crikey now claims ACA the original footage was posted on YouTube and included the driver’s name as part of his audition submission for Top Gear. It says ACA left out the driver’s name (which was admitted by Steinfort in part 2 of the story last night) in an effort to “track down the driver.”

The full clip of the driver is here, added to YouTube by an outraged person last September, raising questions about apparent exclusivity.

Crikey says the Nissan in question was sold just months after the video was shot, on February 22, 2008, and the registration was binned when it later became a track car — rendering Nine’s shout-out pointless.

As TV Tonight noted, the call for Top Gear auditions was actually two years ago.

This footage is from ‘night one’ of the story, Tuesday:

14 Responses

  1. So what: shoddy journalism. Happens all the time. Top Gear is an abomination and in no way whatsoever will encourage drivers, (especially young, hormonal men), to be better drivers. Cut up the wheels of film and chuck them away. It’s hypocritical for the TV channels to pull sad faces over the multitude of young deaths happening on the roads (because they drive in “top gear”) and then host this reprehensible garbage.

  2. God i hate Today Tonight. Gutter journalism (if you’d call it that) at its … best(?) worst (?) whatever …

    As many of you guys have said, Top Gear has been around for years on SBS, TT never went near it, the second it’s on a true “rival” network, it’s open slather.
    How does Top Gear influence people to drive fast or stupidly any more than any other car racing show or event? Oh that’s right, they’re Channel Seven shows … Seven you are pathetic for giving this show so much free rein, TT you are even more pathetic because … well just because you’re Today Today..

  3. Please let Media Watch lead with this story next week.
    Don’t ACA and TT learn that the truth always comes out? Is this the quality of ‘journalism’ we can expect for the rest of 2010 from 7&9?

    @mac – I double TGA encouraged people to break the law and probably binned the audition tapes of those who did, I won’t be surprise if they would have handed the footage over to the police in the name of public safety.

  4. when i first saw this story i was suspicious about nine’s claims not to know the driver’s identity. although regarding the top gear audition, do top gear actually encourage people to do drifts, burnout etc for the audition tape? if so would this mean they are encouraging people to break the law, as these auditions are done on a regular street rather than controlled environments.

  5. Maybe Seven should take a look at Fifth Gear, which they air.
    If this behaviour is such a problem with Total Trash , why didn’t they do a story on it earlier. Why not do a story on Fifth Gear??? or Top Gear when it was on SBS? Would they have done a story on it If Nine didn’t??? Of course they wouldn’t. Any time Seven thinks they can take a cheap shot at Nine or its shows they do .
    As they say .. desperate people…

  6. why is it always someone else fault, a man drives like an idiot, so who do you blame, top gear of cause, not the actually driver. shame tt cant even tell the difference between, as you said, a controlled environment and a regular street.

  7. ACA asking the public to find Carlo is rather empty because he sold his car & the license plate would not be valid anymore. It’s amazing how they can make such empty claims just to get ratings. Their staff must spend at least 5 hours a day in the ACA office just laughing at how stupid their viewers are.

    I also wish that Media Watch could be a half-hour program, 10 minutes just isn’t enough, especially considering the ratings it receives.

  8. This is why I don’t bother watching these shows.
    Has seven forgotten about their own motering show, Fifth Gear? In which a few shows ago were showing viewers how to drift and trying to out drift each other. I’m sure no one went out and tried it.

  9. We all know the season TT is going after Top Gear now and never bothered for the last 5 or so years.

    Top Gear is the car show equivalent of WWE, most of the time everything is stages or held in controlled conditions, also since when has The Stig drifted in his normal hot laps. Anyone with half a brain knows its not the fastest way around any track/corner.

    Carlo was just and immature idiot, no wonder he didn’t get the TGA job 2 years ago!

    …and yes Media Watch will be interesting.

Leave a Reply