Top Gear drives up 1.68m viewers
Nine's reputedly big fee in hijacking Top Gear from SBS appears to have paid off with a huge 1.68m viewers tuning in for the new episode last night.
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Nine’s reputedly big fee in hijacking Top Gear from SBS appears to have paid off with a huge 1.68m viewers tuning in for the new episode last night.
The show was the #1 programme for Tuesday, driving right across My Kitchen Rules (1.21m) and The Biggest Loser / Bondi Rescue (722,000 / 966,000).
With all the advertisements Top Gear fans are questioning whether the episode had been trimmed. The BBC delivers a 52 minute international version to its clients. Nine maintains it didn’t edit the show, but it certainly dumped the credits as it shifted gears to the Winter Olympics special which had already run twice on SBS. That episode drove home with 1.24m. Nine will need to be aware it could jeopardise the brand in moving it into the broad, middle lane of television’s highway. Attention to detail is one of the reasons the show became a hit in the first place.
Together with Vancouver Gold highlights (905,000) the night was easily won by Nine.
But TEN had cause to smile with NCIS winning its hour on 1.36m viewers although Bondi Rescue was seemingly dragged down from Loser’s lukewarm lead-in. Grey’s Anatomy sunk to 888,000 for Seven.
Hot Seat (620,000) had a comfy lead over Deal or No Deal (523,000) while Today (370,000) again beat Sunrise (344,000).
Kevin McCloud’s Grand Tour travelled with 746,000 for ABC1, much bigger than its Foreign Correspondent lead-in of 559,000. The highly-underrated Big Love was left with 139,000 on SBS ONE, but next week Insight returns.
54 Responses
You all have too much time on your hands…….
888,000 Viewers for Greys Anatomy.What a Bore If anyone can sit through shows like that without changing the channel halfway through I will commend them.
I know they needed a temporary replacement for Packed to the Rafters but why not How I met your Mother or American Dad,Family Guy or any other 21st century comedies something laughable and family friendly for an 8:30pm Tuesday Timeslot.It would have been a lot cheaper for them to have retained All Saints than importing in some US Import at the expense of local actors and jobs.
It just goes to show that Top Gear is a perfect fit for Nine’s mainly bogan audience. I don’t want to see it again on SBS because it just brings down the overall tone of the network. I’m sure there was many station promos for Top Gear on programmes like the cricket, Two & A Half Men & ACA, so their potential audience would be reminded of Top Gear’s existence & tune in.
What would be fair is if Nine handed over what’s left of their HBO programming output deal to SBS so they have first rights on everything that comes with it. I could totally see a programmes like Six Feet Under fit in with the SBS schedule! I still can’t believe Nine managed to get through all of Six Feet Under on late Monday nights! It’s not like Nine broadcast much from HBO, but I know that comes with their Time-Warner contract that they’ve had for many decades. Anyway…
No doubt there was viewers watching Top Gear for the first time which will be good for Top Gear after all some people only watch programmes if its on channels 7,9,10 when some gems can be on ABC and SBS.
Viewers of Top Gear would have been disappointed with last nights showing and its the constant tinkering to fit into there own schedules.
Sadly, I watched my first full Top Gear episode on NIne, and I loved it! I knew about the show and how popular it was, just never got around to watching it! Wish I had watched it on a respectable broadcaster!
haha oh wow…
Problem is that, these “Top Gear Fans” (who probably seen the all the new episodes) will probably tune in to the next new episode on C9 only to come here and complain (again). Rinse and Repeat for the next 3 months
One solution could be that C9 could show one of the “extended” version of the show and have it run from 7:30pm – 9:00pm. Then have a comedy filler from 9:00-9:30pm or something like that
a chunk of the “new” viewers wouldn’t even know/care if the show was chopped up. they are probably just happy its on TV and on a channel with a good reception…..
JohnTV, the show is always around an hour long, often a few minutes longer. The international version is the one cut to around 50 minutes, generally the news is taken out, or sometimes the celebrity interview. Nine took that 50 minute version and hacked off another 10 or so minutes, taking parts out of virtually every single segment.
Interesting Greg that the iTunes copy is the same as the original UK one, I would have thought it would be the 52min International copy.
Nathan go to ninemsn.com and there is a “Your Say – Top Gear” to post comments/complains on their very own site.
If this isn’t proof that SBS and ABC are neglected by the idiots of Australia like vanilla ice cream (sorry for the atrocious simile), then I don’t know what is.
Like so many of you i was stunned by what 9 did to Top Gear last night, but there is an answer. itunes have season 14 now available to download, however they’re only releasing one episode a time it appears and i assume that means you have to wait for nine to show their cut down version first. still i’d rather wait one extra day and watch the full version without the constant commercial interuptions that nine pounded it with last night.
Just for the record the full version which i have downloaded from itunes is 61 minutes and 2 seconds long…. that should give you a good idea onjust how much 9 cut out last night!
Where do send complaints, I know it’s been said before but the Winter Olympics Special was edited, badly. People who hadn’t seen the Special were problem wondering why Hammond wasn’t around for the first few challenges, then cut to him in a shed in England trying to see who could hold out the car or him in the cold. And the references to day time telly in the ice hockey challenge. Why did they do and Why did they both to show the first episode then make us wait two weeks to see the rest of it? I agree with Shelly, get Top Gear back to SBS, atleast they showed the long Vietnam Special, Nine would take a hacksaw to it.
Nine may be telling the truth based on what version they brought. Whilst the show is 52 minutes, BBC International Sales can do the cut down prior to delivery, which means that Nine could have received a commercial break broadcast version. It might has still been seamless to allow for the broadcaster to insert their own breaks but it would have been a shorter duration.
Or Nine may have just decided to cut out 10 minutes to get it to 42 minutes themselves – which is a lot of work considering you are alleged to have paid $19m for 2 years.
It wasn’t just 17 minutes cut out of the version that most Top Gear fans watched months ago, it also wasn’t even in HD. Started 5 minutes late as well, which only served to show the massive difference between that horrible sitcom they have on before it, shown in HD of course, then suddenly cuts Clarkson’s head in poorly upscaled SD.
Even worse than Nine’s Olympic coverage.
@Jennie well the facts are they were send 52 minutes and aired 42 so unless the end credits ran longer than those for Avatar (in voice of Jeremy Clarkson) They were lying!
BTW for those who want to see the Winter Games one again (unedited by Nine) then BBC Knowledge is airing in March 7, check your guides.
So what are the facts? Did Nine edit it or not? Surely it can be proven one way or another? Nine caught out lying?
Hey mikeys
More people watch 2.5 men than the news. They are idiots.
I appreciate the advice but I rent and I’m not prepared to pay for a new antenna and to be honest almost anything I want to watch on SBS I can obtain elsewhere. Apart form world news they don’t have any local content I’m interested in. Most of the time it’s fine. It is annoying that with analogue the picture would get fuzzy but with digital it drops out all together. A few years ago I knew some people living two door from the Secret Life of Us flat in St. Kilda who couldn’t get channel 10! I know in the few times when all channels have played the same thing (probably Diana’s Wedding and/or funeral) or the odd significant event SBS still rates the lowest even though they have less adds than the commercials. People just don’t watch it for some strange reason.
Not happy Jan! Even with ads, the Winter Olympics Special part of the night started well before 8.30pm, which means a lot of the regular episode was cut. I knew we could not trust nine.
I would be happy to donate money to SBS to help them raise funds to get the rights back! Anyone want to join me in a fighting fund???
Surely now 9 have a confirmed monster on their hands, the way to take max advantage is to stop editing it to squeeze into an hour and run the full version over 90 mins. It maximises 9’s revenue and minimises compaints about editing. Top Gear is not just a TV show, it’s a religion to millions of fans around the world. Mess with it at your peril, 9.
@Seymor Smith: When you say you’re in Inner Melbourne, have you considered you might be in the range of the South Yarra/Como translator which might give you a better signal. Alternatively you might need to do what I had to do and replace my 40+ year old antenna for a new one to get a clear digital reception.
Having seen the current season in full I tuned in last night to see how badly it was butchered.It was worse than I was expecting.I certainly won’t be watching it on Nine again.
Craig says: And will they edit the 75 minute Bolivia Special later in the season?
We’ve already seen the Bolivia special here in Adelaide. I don’t know whether or not they cut any of it, but it was dragged out to 105 minutes with ads.
I have digital and my SBS drops out from time to time. I keep getting no signal before it will kick back in. A friend down the road can’t tune it in most of the time and my brother nearby doesn’t get it at all. I’m in inner city Melbourne. Yes we should have better boxes or antennas but I really think a lot of people having tuning problems. Growing up we never watched anything on SBS as the signal was too poor.
@ kathy the problem with fast tracking is people then go
“there’s only been 3 episodes and it’s already on repeats?! wtf?! why?! rage!” not understanding in the US, sporting events on carrying networks and rival networks will effect the broadcast of their shows, October and November sweeps, and Thanksgiving weeks, all cause TV shows to air reruns and stagger their airring dates. And then when a show’s first half of a season ends in December, people start raging again “where is ____, does Channel _ expect me to believe that episode 10 counts as the season finale!?” again not being able to grasp the fact that these TV shows cost between 2 and 5 million to produce, and they don’t get as much advertising revenue during the Christmas/New Years period when people are out shopping and such.
@tomothy – I agree, on average they are around 50 minutes on SBS and the same for BBC Knowledge, which would not edit their own series.
It will be interesting when this series comes to BBCK to see how much more they show, they are airing S12 now so it might be a while.
And will they edit the 75 minute Bolivia Special later in the season?