Top Gear’s top cuts?
Did Nine trim Tuesday night's Top Gear? Time to get to the bottom of things...
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News
Following on from questions about edits to Top Gear‘s Tuesday night episode, Nine has denied it trimmed the show.
Some readers have noted not only a longer version as having aired in the UK, but changes between the Eric Bana interview between a promo and the final episode that aired. So what’s going on?
In the UK Top Gear airs as a 60 minute version on BBC TWO as it doesn’t have commercial breaks.
BBC Worldwide sells a 50 minute version to all territories around the world because most broadcasters are commercial.
The international version sold to SBS is now sold to Nine.
Most of the excised material is content that can’t be cleared outside the UK, with music being a big factor due to its expense.
When Nine won the rights to the show last year and began assembling promos there was no international version available for distribution.
BBC Worldwide has advised TV Tonight it supplied a BBC off-air edit, which included a slightly longer Bana interview. It resulted in a difference between the promo and the final episode as aired.
Nine did drop the closing credits in the transition to the Winter Olympics special.
BBC Worldwide is aware of audience confusion over edits and intends to be monitoring it closely in the future.
The show returns in 2 weeks time with Cricket scheduled to air next week.
30 Responses
Craig, I’m not going to worry about the fact that you can’t spell “lose”, but you’d have to be living in a far off galaxy to think that BBC would even consider returning to a broadcaster that could only deliver them half only half as many viewers. They’re probably kicking themselves for not having sought a broader commercial Australian broadcaster earlier.
Of course Hugh Laurie has to put on an American accent to get the part, doing great in the role as well.
What would be the best thing to come out of Australia? Commercial television!
I dont get the drama
They should at least admit they cut things out of the Winter Olympics.
BTW just tried to get onto the ninemsn blog and got this message
“Were sorry, but the Blog or Blog Entry you requested is currently not available. Please try again later.”
Last I checked they were up to 350 with most of them complaints, but will Nine listen?
Also some WIN stations will be airing the show again at 10:30pm Saturday night after viewer complaints about the picture breaking up, but being perfectly fine during all the ad breaks, go figure…
I hope they loose the rights and it goes back to SBS next year, David do we know how long Nine have the contract for?
What’s the big deal? You miss 20 seconds of a bunch of 60 year old British men trying to be like teenagers…. everybidy knows the only good thing to come out of Britian is Hugh Laurie…
Still not happy Jan!
Re:ozinoz
The Bolivia Special has already screened in Adelaide while the rest of the country had the cricket that was being played at the Adelaide Oval. Nine managed to drag a 75 minute BBC episode to 105 minutes – a full 30 mins of commercials shoehorned into a 75 minute program.
That is pathetic. Channel 9 know they are editing but they just wont say why. I know SBS did this as well but not as obvious
Re Billy – 12:56
The Bolivia Special has already screened in Adelaide while the rest of the country had the cricket that was being played at the Adelaide Oval. Nine managed to drag a 75 minute BBC episode to 105 minutes – a full 30 mins of commercials shoehorned into a 75 minute program.
Personally I didnt watch to see how painful it was as I have vowed Not to watch it on Nine full stop.
They Cut it, Their is no doubt, One wonders why cant they make the show 90minutes with commericals. I do not know what they are going to do when the Bolivia special airs as that was seen on BBC as a 75mins no ads special
That doesn’t clear anything up at all. It doesn’t address how the 50 minute international version got edited down to 41 minutes. The in-studio conclusion and credits only account for less than a minute and a half. It has been further edited and nobody is owning up to it. I’d bet my life that the BBC would just say it was them if they’d done it, so my money is on Nine.
@Dexter – Yes !
@sillygostly – if they need 20 minutes worth of ads then 70 min time slot would work, but this week they have the 2nd show and then the real Olympics to cross to at 9:30, they can’t run over 20 minutes for that.
BTW did anyone not when the Games coverage started Tuesday night? I switched off once the new TG had finished as thanks to SBS I saw the other ep only a few weeks back.
Yes it will be interesting to see if Nine keep the credits in 2 week, I think they will be like they did this week with them pushed to the side, I just hope they don’t drop the conclusion in the studio.
Would it kill them to allocate a 70 minute timeslot for the show? =/
Yes there are issues with what was broadcast by Nine but as it was a double special show I’m reserving final judgement until the next episode is aired and see how they treat it. I’m praying!!!
Perhaps Top Gear HD would be too expensive for Nine?
I recall ABC passing up Dr Who HD because of the price…
Was there closing credits for the Winter Olympics special.
Viewers saw a split screen with two thirds previewing the next Top Gear show and the rest of the screen totally unreadable, could have been anything with such tiny writing. Then for a second the BBC logo appreared and that was it. SBS allowed the closing credits to end then had a full screen preview of the next show.
Its all about presentation styles and fitting programmes into schedules (plus ads). Nine has a lot of work to do to give respect to the programme and its established viewers. Hopefully BBC Worldwide will keep monitoring this situation.
Never even knew it was on. Was it on in Perth?
“The show returns in 2 weeks time with Cricket scheduled to air next week.”
C9 up to their old tricks already.
On a week, off a week, bumped, off a week, back a for a week, put onto Go, brought back from go, put into original timeslot, bumped from original timeslot…..
This is how the top gear brand will lose appeal in Australia.
I know this’ll irk some people when i say it – but come on – Cricket….instead of top gear???? For real???
Maybe if the BBC doesn’t like how Nine is treating it’s show they will cancel the contract?
We all know they did not air a 50 minute show Monday, it was around 42 minutes and even without the closing credits there is no way it would be 50 min with them. They also dropped the closing conclusion, which I don’t think has ever happened before on SBS.
If the BBC needs a copy that Nine aired I’m sure there are dozens of fans that can help!
Just watched it back on DVR – I counted only 4 ad breaks at about 3-4 minutes each that probably means they didnt edit the BBC worldwide version. Pity they can’t play the original.
Was Nine upscaling a SD version on their HD channel?
Top Gear is now shown in HD in the UK. Yes in car cameras are SD but the quality difference was obvious during the final scenes in the Romanian moutains. They were fantastic in HD/
Is this another case (like Doctor Who) where the channel is cutting corners and buying the cheaper release or is the international version SD?
Disappointing
There is no confusion over edits, the simple fact is that Nine cut 8 minutes from the 50 minute international version. If they deny it, perhaps they’d like to visit my house and we can play spot the cuts
Bah Humbug! So only 10 mins of commercials instead of the 17-18 mins
Yeah, I can see that happening @
lol…
They can’t go one week without dropping it for another “event” show. Typical channel 9… How long till it slips to a later timeslot, then to another night, then we miss a few episodes, then a few others get shown completely out of order, and so on.