There have been a been a lot of rumours in the press over the weekend asking whether Amazon have axed The Grand Tour and suggesting that Series 3 will be the last we see of Clarkson, Hammond and May.
Amazon reportedly stumped up some £160m in total for 36 episodes of The Grand Tour over three years so hosting the show doesn’t come cheap, in fact Jeff Bezos was quoted as saying that it would be expensive, very expensive. However it may well have paid for itself – when Series 1 aired, Amazon saw the second biggest number of new Prime member sign-ups on the day of the show’s debut.
Series 1 was just ‘ok’ TV, but by Series 2 many of the problems had been ironed out. The Grand Tour dumped their roving tent in favour of a fixed location in Oxfordshire, ‘The American’ was dumped and replaced by Abbie Eaton, a British racing driver and instructor and the ‘Celebrity Brain Crash’ was dumped as the tired joke of killing a celebrity in each episode was shelved. The Grand Tour had found it’s place with Clarkson, Hammond and May back in the groove delivering what their fans expected – banter, superb cinematography, dodgy jokes and occasionally even the odd car review.
What appears to have prompted the rumours that Series 3 will be the end for The Grand Tour is that Clarkson has signed up to replace Chris Tarrant as host of Who wants to be a Millionaire. However the show is currently only scheduled to return for a week to celebrate it’s 20th anniversary so that wouldn’t get in the way of filming a fourth series of The Grand Tour.
The press have stated that no one working on the show has signed a new contract and are wondering what they’ll do when filming on Series 3 wraps up. When asked directly on Twitter if The Grand Tour is done, Clarkson replied with a single word ‘Nope’.
The Grand Tour is without a doubt Amazon’s greatest TV series success. The only real question they will need to answer is will the investment justify commissioning further series? Fans will hope so, but retailers selling on Amazon should also cross their fingers. There’s no doubt at all that Prime members spend more on Amazon and that means more sales for third party members too. If suffering Clarkson, Hammond and May for a few more years keeps consumers signed up for Prime then it’s hard not to be in favour.
One Response
Must admit I do enjoy the grand tour (basically Top gear) it is a guilty pleasure.
Get rid of the celebs there boring, just get the 3 of them doing something stupid with CARS. Anyway am sure someone else will take them on.
Top Gear has never been close since, Le Blanc keeps that going he is good.
The biggest mistake Amazon will make is taking on the ATP tennis tour as the big names are all coming to the end.