Originally Posted by Ten_Ben:
“I'm not going to carry-on going round in circles. I've been having a 'grown-up discussion' here for several months. I've stated my position several times and my views haven't changed. We'll have to agree to disagree but if you think the CE TG series struggled for ratings purely because it was below par then I believe you're mistaken and IMO there are a lot of other factors involved. You only have to have read this board when the first show went out or when CE resigned to see the depth of feeling. Or look at Twitter. Or read the numerous comments on all the newspaper articles. Or just talk to people.
There *are* people who do not think the BBC should have let Clarkson go irrespective of his actions in the fracas. Plenty of people have said they wouldn't watch because without CHM it wasn't Top Gear. Plenty of others said they wouldn't watch if CE was doing it. No doubt some people in these groups did tune in at the beginning of the series out of curiosity but, of course, the shows were never going to keep those people, they simply weren't good enough. Hence ratings continued to fall.
Personally I've never been in any of the 'haters' camps. My emphasis has been on wanting TG to survive, whoever is presenting it. Check my previous posts. Anyway, I shall probably leave it there now until the next series, assuming there will be one.”
“I'm not going to carry-on going round in circles. I've been having a 'grown-up discussion' here for several months. I've stated my position several times and my views haven't changed. We'll have to agree to disagree but if you think the CE TG series struggled for ratings purely because it was below par then I believe you're mistaken and IMO there are a lot of other factors involved. You only have to have read this board when the first show went out or when CE resigned to see the depth of feeling. Or look at Twitter. Or read the numerous comments on all the newspaper articles. Or just talk to people.
There *are* people who do not think the BBC should have let Clarkson go irrespective of his actions in the fracas. Plenty of people have said they wouldn't watch because without CHM it wasn't Top Gear. Plenty of others said they wouldn't watch if CE was doing it. No doubt some people in these groups did tune in at the beginning of the series out of curiosity but, of course, the shows were never going to keep those people, they simply weren't good enough. Hence ratings continued to fall.
Personally I've never been in any of the 'haters' camps. My emphasis has been on wanting TG to survive, whoever is presenting it. Check my previous posts. Anyway, I shall probably leave it there now until the next series, assuming there will be one.”
My impression reading this thread is that while some posters did say they'd never watch Top Gear without CHM presenting it, and some said they couldn't stand CE presenting it many, possibly most, said they'd give the new show a chance. Thus the opening ratings weren't that far down. You can attribute that drop to the "not without CHM" and "not with CE" groups. That left a substantial group of viewers giving the new show a chance. As you say the quality was poor so week by week more people decided not to bother watching.
I'm well aware of the social media comments thanks, though suggesting I "just talk to people" is harsh to say the least.
If you read my post carefully it's clear the critics I referred to were professional TV critics who review from an objective POV, not the general public who are more subjective.Yes of course there are people who wish CHM were back on the BBC and wouldn't watch Top Gear without them in it. There are also people who would not watch anything with CE presenting it. I didn't say there weren't. But those aren't the only reasons for the show getting bad reviews and poor ratings. I would argue they aren't the main reasons either, given the ratings evidence.
