Top Gear is moving to BBC One. For the first time in almost half a century, it has been announced that the motoring show is going the way of The Apprentice and the Great British Bake Off, switching to the country’s biggest television channel in order to turbo-charge its success.
And, like it or not, it is a success. Although it might have seemed like a dead duck in the dark, distant, post-punch Chris Evans days, Top Gear has spent the last few years focusing on its fundamentals and building a better version of itself. Top Gear in 2020 is completely rejuvenated. The new presenting team have found their feet. Knackered old format points have been jettisoned. And, most impressively of all, people are watching again. Ratings have hit a four-year high of 4.3 million. It’s easily the most watched show on BBC Two at the moment. As comebacks go, it’s incredible.
Take Sunday’s episode, for example. It consisted of just two things: a long challenge-style travelogue around the mountains of Peru and a 10-minute review of an electric car. That’s it. No tortuous Star in a Reasonably Priced Car. No lumbering witless “news” segment that exists only so the hosts can nudge the needle on uncomfortable xenophobia. Just a long, charming, beautiful film about a distant country, and a serious review to keep the car nerds happy.
And, although it began as something of an arranged marriage, the hosts have struck upon their all-important chemistry. Paddy McGuinness is the enthusiastic dimwit, Freddie Flintoff is the amiable dimwit and Chris Harris is the angry little ball of stress holding it all together. Back in its juggernaut days, Top Gear found success by simplifying its hosts into recognisable personas; Hamster, Captain Slow and a sort of walking manifestation of gout. The new hosts have already cracked this, and that’s most of the battle won. Whichever way you look at it, Top Gear’s turnaround has been startling.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean it deserves to be on BBC One. Ostensibly, the move has been designed to “attract younger viewers and safeguard the future of the licence fee”. But that doesn’t make sense. From a terrestrial viewpoint, it seems shortsighted; so many shows have made the leap from BBC Two to BBC One that it has robbed the former of its identity. It has become a feeder channel for its big brother, and you’d be hard pushed to find anyone who could tell you what BBC Two is actually for any more.
Besides, young people don’t care what channel a show is on. Young people don’t consume television like that. I’m not especially young, but I can’t remember the last time I sat down to watch Top Gear at the allotted time on a terrestrial channel. It might have been seven or eight years ago. Instead, like everyone else, I tend to watch it on iPlayer, where channel identities are blurred into a big, homogenous “BBC”. If the BBC wants to attract younger viewers, why move Top Gear around in a way that makes zero difference to how young people watch it? It feels like rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic.
This is not the answer to the BBC’s problems. Especially with Top Gear, a show that even in its modern incarnation is almost two decades old. To attract young audiences, you have to reflect what young audiences want, not buff 20-year-old shows to a high sheen. Top Gear hasn’t been in such good shape for years, but there’s no avoiding the fact that it’s still Top Gear. It’s still a mouldy old car show. Perhaps the real way to get new viewers onboard is to ditch it completely and start again from scratch.
