Amazon founder Jeff Bezos says that the Amazon TV version of Top Gear featuring James May, Richard Hammond and Jeremy Clarkson is going to be “very, very, very expensive”. To him maybe, but for Amazon Prime viewers it will be free, when it arrives.
Amazon Prime TV UK is a part of the Prime offering that means free delivery and other perks for £79 a year.
It sounds like the Top Gear team drove a hard bargain because Bezos says: “They’re worth a lot and they know it.” The new show featuring the gang will air in 2016.
Bezos goes on to to say in the Daily Telegraph interview that the opportunities for TV and Amazon are huge because the times have changed:
“We have a lot of things in the pipeline, which I think viewers in the UK and around the world are going to love. And I think Clarkson’s new show is going to be one of those. I think we’re in a golden age of television, so if you go back in time even just five years, you couldn’t get A-list talent to do TV serials, or, if you could, it was a rare thing. But that’s flipped completely. That format change opens up a lot of storytelling possibilities, which, when mixed with the movie-like production standards, and the A-list talent, is why we’re seeing amazing television.”
