One of many BBC’s most profitable ever exports, motoring present Prime Gear, has had a chequered run in recent times, culminating with it being indefinitely suspended after presenter Freddie Flintoff was badly injured in an accident in 2022.
Now, former presenter Jeremy Clarkson says the present is required greater than ever, with the arrival of extra electrical automobiles.
Clarkson left the present beneath a cloud in 2015 after an altercation with a producer, and went on to entrance Amazon Prime’s The Grand Tour in addition to his personal hit farming present Clarkson’s Farm, however he instructed The Instances of London it could be very unhappy if the present by no means returned.
Clarkson mentioned: “There’s room for a automotive programme in the intervening time as a result of automobiles are altering so quick and electrical automobiles are coming alongside and no one actually understands what’s a great one and what isn’t.
“Again within the Nineteen Fifties motoring journalism was necessary as a result of all of the automotive firms had been making an attempt new issues — several types of engines and several types of gearboxes — and also you wanted folks to steer you thru the complexity.
“Then by and huge it was pointless for the final 40 years and now it’s essential once more as a result of [when] I take a look at a kilowatt per hour automotive, I don’t know what which means.”
Clarkson was fast to rule himself out of any such present, nevertheless, explaining: “I simply don’t perceive or like electrical automobiles, so I wouldn’t be interested by doing it.”
His remarks are available the identical week because the launch of Flintoff’s self-titled documentary on Disney+. The previous cricketer revealed within the feature-length doc that his accident made him consider he had been handled as “a chunk of meat” by programme makers, saying:
“That’s the hazard that tv falls into — and I discovered it out the arduous approach finally. Everybody all the time needs extra. Everybody needs that factor that nobody has seen earlier than — that greater stunt, or to dig that little deeper.
“In some methods they suppose: ‘Let’s have that close to miss as a result of that may get viewers.’ I ought to have been cleverer as a result of I had already learnt it in sport after all of the accidents and injections and instances I obtained despatched out on a cricket discipline like a chunk of meat. That’s the place TV and sport are fairly comparable. You’re only a commodity.”
Flintoff suffered critical facial accidents when his three-wheel automotive overturned throughout filming of the present in December 2022. The present was instantly placed on hiatus, and Flintoff mentioned within the documentary that he has stored little or no contact along with his former co-presenters, for his worry of being “triggered” by recollections of his accident.
The BBC launched an investigation into the circumstances of the accident, which The Instances added “consists of plenty of suggestions to enhance approaches to security” together with “elevated readability on roles and tasks and higher communication between groups for any future Prime Gear manufacturing.”
Prime Gear debuted again in 1977, and loved its most profitable period from 2002 with Clarkson on the helm, alongside James Could and Richard Hammond.