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Jeremy Clarkson Dismissed From Top Gear
An anonymous reader writes According to BBC News, Jeremy Clarkson, longstanding main host for the automobile television show Top Gear, will not have his contract renewed. This decision came about two weeks after he was suspended due to an altercation with a Top Gear producer involving catering during filming for the show. Admittedly not the nerdiest news of the day, but it can be said that his thirteen-year run on the new format of Top Gear has interested many Slashdot users who love their cars and the entertainment that the show has brought to them.
Fact is BBC are getting dragged over the coals for letting all kinds of behavior from past stars go unchecked in order to keep the money flowing, including pedophiles. While I love Top Gear and will be sad to see its demise apparently he put the producer in hospital. Even if that is not true what is not in dispute is that he physically assaulted another person and some lines cannot be crossed no matter who you are or what you bring in. My anger in this case is not with the BBC, but with Clarkson himself. As far as I am concerned he killed Top Gear and no-one else.
I love it how when a big company for once doesn't choose for the money but actually takes a stance against a star misbehaving, and then everybody is like "sucks being them, they'll lose a lot of money over this".
Do we want them to be ethical, or just chasing money no matter the consequences? Either of both appear to be the wrong thing to do it seems.
Plus the other two refused to keep filming without him, probably because they know that they can't carry the show on their own and that many fans would be pissed at them if they tried to. Besides, they do have other side shows to keep them busy or they could just retire assuming that they were wise with their earnings over the past decade.
But yeah, without Jeremy the show will tank. He is the most important of the three hosts and without the hosts there is little reason to watch the show as it'll just became as lame as the American version (which is a really redundant spin-off to begin with.)
Additionally, one advantage of being a BBC show is that he didn't have any advertisers to offend.
The most valuable advertisers for a motoring show are always going to be car/automotive companies, and trying to convince them to keep feeding you money is not particularly compatible with slagging off their products, particularly in jest.
I think he probably took for granted the freedom the BBC actually gave him to speak his mind (about cars). It may turn out that the PC brigade were much more understanding than the world of advertising driven commercial TV. You only have to look at the way the Telegraph shutdown debate about HSBC's (one of their big advertisers) Swiss tax evasion scheme to see what eventually wins out.
So his mother just died and he was going through a nasty divorce. His soon-to-be-ex wife is also his manager, so both his professional and personal lives are completely miserable. He was working long hours and he had just spent two hours in a pub where he had been drinking heavily.
None of that excuses a physical attack, but the BBC should have stepped in and provided him with a chance to see a therapist and get some help, then make the appropriate apologies and restitution. Sometimes "zero tolerance" absolutism needs to be relaxed a bit in exigent circumstances.
Sometimes the "writing on the wall" is blood spatter...
They were more of audacious humor being taken as rude and thus made the BBC look bad. See this highly informative post I made that was quickly down-modded (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7156205&cid=49345691).
1. Drove a truck in the Arctic circle while having a gin and tonic. (No roads, international waters)
2. Called truck drivers porn-loving prostitute murderers.
3. Called the Prime Minister a one-eyes idiot.
4. Said the BBC was obsessed with hiring Black Muslim lesbians (commentary on the focus on diversity).
5. Told a story about a woman wearing a burka falling over and exposing a g-string and stockings.
6. Called a Ferrari "special needs".
And on and on. Within the context of the character he plays, this is all to be expected. It's all the joke of him being an ignorant buffoon. He plays this character on TV everywhere he goes, but his more intelligent normal self pops out from time to time such as on QI or on some of his specials.