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Shane Jacobson fronts Top Gear Australia

Shane "Kenny" Jacobson has been named as one of three hosts for Nine's production of Top Gear Australia.

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Shane “Kenny” Jacobson has been named as one of three hosts for Nine’s production of Top Gear Australia.

He will be joined by Steve Pizzatti, who was with the show on SBS, and Ewen Page, editor of the Top Gear magazine.

Nine has the rights to the local version as part of its title acquisition from the BBC.

“As a boy from the western suburbs of Melbourne, I’ve always had a passion for cars,” Jacobson told news.com.au. “I wasn’t the guy at the set of lights whistling out of the car and doing burnouts, I wasn’t the guy at the illegal street drags, but I am the guy who’s always been keen on cars.”

Jacobson will also host When Kids Grow Up for Nine.

The rumour mill had been speculating that Shane Warne was to win a hosting role, but it hasn’t been realised.

Nine is expected to air specials later this year, to be produced by Freehand.

Source: news.com.au

29 Responses

  1. @ant: I think Dick Johnson has his hands full running Dick Johnson Racing. Dick’s Bathurst-winning co-driver John Bowe is prob looking for a bit of extra cash to help pay for all the dents when he races his classic Camaro. He could work but not as lead host.

    Grant Denyer can drive, and could always do with a bit more exposure…

  2. You’re kidding me???? Shane Jacobson was the best they could come up with??? I cannot stand this bloke, he has zero charisma. Terrible decision, just awful.

  6. Kenny might work. Dick and Peter would have been good too, except one’s dead. Why don’t they get Dick Johnson?

    Fact is, unless they get some serious magic happening, it will always fail because teh original is based on those 3 blokes and their unique position in europle.

  9. Hopefully this time around they do an Australian version of the show, and not just a cheap rip off of the UK version.

    The big problem in reality is that, the UK version makes so much money, they can afford to pour money into production costs and setting up some great stunts. The Australian version hast got this luxury, so you end up with a poorer product at the end of the day.

    With all the great drivers Australia had produced over the years, you would also think there would be Someone worth giving a leading role too. Possibly a former V* Supercar driver….but no.

    What ever the case, with it not being on Channel 9…..it will be one long advert.

  11. Freehand was the production company behind the SBS version (now airing on SBS2) they will also be producing this version. So it doesn’t matter which network it’s on the same company is making it so expect the same quality is my guess…

    Oh and I must be one of the few people who didn’t mind the original, I think for the most part they did a good job, it’s a hard ask to follow such a successful show as the original UK one. That said I wouldn’t mind it if the UK boys toned down some of there stunts and actually presented the cars… okay maybe I need to watch a different car show LOL

    BTW any now on when the new UK series will air here on Nine, it starts next weekend over their on the BBC.

  12. Why bother. TG U.K is good enough. Why not go with three no names? And i think if they want this to work, then they have to do things their own way. Instead of just trying to copy of off TG UK. Because if they do. May as well just watch the original. TG UK presenters are great. They are clearly smart men. doing stupid things. TG aus had dumb men prending to be smart men, doing dumb things.

  13. I was hoping Pizzatti wouldn’t be apart of the show, ah well.
    I dont see this group having the same chemistry as the UK version, which is really the key to the shows success. but we shall see

  21. Thankfully they didn’t go with Warne. I’ll be checking this out! Hope it improves upon the SBS one. Just didn’t flow like the UK one. Just needed more time IMHO.

  22. Thank god it was Shane Jacobson and not Shane Warne!

    I think this actually could be good, if they don’t get censored about reporting faults of car then might have advertising on Nine.

    Now I wonder will the local version be ‘super sized’ and run 60 minutes without ads or will the stick to the more usual 40 or so with 20 min of ads in one hour?

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