Top Gear's Clarkson & Team to Rake in Millions

It's been official for a couple of weeks now that Amazon has outbid Netflix and everybody else to hire the former Top Gear team of Jeremy Clarkson, James May, Richard Hammond and producer Andy Wilman to put together a brand new television program to replace our dearly loved but now departed Top Gear. 

As you probably know, the BBC dumped Clarkson after an altercation last March when Clarkson allegedly hit one of the Top Gear producers during an argument at a restaurant. After a thorough review, the BBC decided to let Clarkson go and May, Hammond and Wilman followed suit by leaving the show as well.

Top Gear was generating enormous profits for the BBC bringing in revenues of nearly 150 million pounds (about US $230 million) each year with an estimated 350 million viewers in 214 countries worldwide, making it the most watched factual TV program in the history of television, according to the Guinness Book of Records. The BBC is known for making top quality programs and documentaries but no factual program has ever managed to reach Top Gear's astounding number of viewers.

Top Gear will continue on the BBC but will be hosted by British Radio 2 DJ Chris Evans, an avid car fan who's been a guest on the show countless times over the past few years. Evans has signed a three year contract to front Top Gear and is currently advertising for co-hosts to help him run the show. The general consensus is that the show will never garner the viewer numbers or loyalty as the original show designed and hosted by Clarkson.

Now that the new Amazon program is officially in the works, some financial details about the new show have come to light. Clarkson, who was earning about $1.5 million a year from the BBC, will be making a bit over $15 million each year with Amazon. Hammond and May, who were earning around $800,000 a year with Top Gear, will now be making around $10 million each, while Willmon will be producing the show and receiving a sum estimated between $10 and $11 million a year.

The new Amazon contract runs for three years. While each episode of the old Top Gear show cost the BBC about $1.5 million to produce, the new show with Amazon is being estimated to cost just under $7 million per episode, with about half of that going to salaries. That's quite a jump in salary for everybody concerned and for the show itself, so all Top Gear lovers around the world are anxiously waiting to see what sort of new show we'll be getting with Amazon's money.

The new show has no name yet but the first show is expected to be shown in the Fall of 2016 and will be broadcast exclusively to Amazon Prime subscribers.