Jeremy Clarkson

Clarkson & co release first photos from Amazon's The Grand Tour

The photos were released in a series of tweets by the show's presenters and on The Grand Tour Twitter account and show the three stars recording the first of their shows in Johannesburg, South Africa. 

The show is recorded in a large tent that, along with the presenters and crew, will travel to locations across the world including Europe and America. 

 

Netflix announces new Top Gear deal

Top Gear, Chris Evans, Matt le Blanc,

The SVOD platform already shows older series of BBC Top Gear with Jeremy Clarkson.

The details of the deal remain vague, however Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos told Buzzfeed News that the show will “fall under the same deals” of international distribution as the existing Top Gear, adding that the deal will be “multi-territory for sure.”

Top entertainment TV for 2016

David Walliams, Lip Sync Battle, UK, Mel B, Professor Green

The year is coming to an end, it is time to remember fondly the past year’s television treats, and look forward to what 2016 will bring in TV entertainment.

 

Lip Sync Battle UK - Channel 5

This American import is being given a very special British makeover. Hosted by former Spice Girl Mel B and rapper Professor Green, the show will have all your favourite celebrities miming their hearts out for the studio audience’s votes. 

Lip Sync Battle UK starts on 8 January 2016

Does TV's top talent have too much power?

Since Jeremy Clarkson punched his Top Gear producer, Oisin Tymon, during a row over the lack of a hot meal, the problems of managing talent have been centre stage.

Former BBC Controller of Entertainment Commissioning Jane Lush said that the fracas distilled some of the key questions that executives and programme-makers face: “How power­ful is talent, where do you draw the line on bad behaviour and is top talent really irreplaceable?”

Kim Shillinglaw: It’s bloody hard to make great television

When Kim Shillinglaw became Controller of BBC Two last year, one of her predecessors took her for a drink. Roly Keating had launched BBC Four, moved on to BBC Two and filled in as temporary boss of BBC One. In a meeting room in New Broadcasting House, Shillinglaw recalls with terrible clarity what he told her.

“He said, ‘You will find BBC Two is the toughest. Let me tell you that now. BBC Four has a lot of individual commissions but not very much money, so there’s a limit to how many things it can commission.

Tony Hall: On a Rescue Mission

For an insight into the day job of the BBC Director-General two years into his role, I pop into Tony Hall's plate-glass eyrie at New Broadcasting House. I arrive in the aftermath of one of the regular encyclicals that DGs dispense.

He's sung the praises of the BBC's place in a "thriving, free and competitive market", an alternative to what a colleague terms the "Joni Mitchell" school of heartstring-tugging about the Beeb's innate brilliance.

Profile: Ken MacQuarrie

When Tony Hall needed someone to investigate Jeremy Clarkson's attack on his producer, he looked north and summoned Ken MacQuarrie, the calm and reserved Director of BBC Scotland.

 

As an experienced member of the Editorial Standards Committee, MacQuarrie was an obvious choice. His terse report sealed Clarkson's exit. What the Top Gear presenter made of the enigmatic Scot, his polar opposite, remains the stuff of speculation.