Clarkson ‘fracas’ threatens Top Gear

BBC2 is preparing to axe the remaining episodes in the current season of motoring series Top Gear after a “fracas” involving presenter Jeremy Clarkson and a producer, prompting questions over the future of the lucrative show.

Jeremy Clarkson (centre) on Top Gear

Top Gear is one of the BBC’s most watched programmes and a vital source of revenue for its commercial arm BBC Worldwide (BBCWW), with the show thought to bring in around £150m each year. It airs around the world and has been remade in numerous territories, recently arriving in China.

However, Clarkson has now been suspended by the UK pubcaster after allegedly punching a producer. The incident followed a series of supposedly offensive comments made by the high-profile and popular presenter.

The Mirror has named the producer involved as Oisin Tymon, a 10-year veteran of the long-running show, and says the argument was over a lack of food provisions for the cast and crew at the end of a day’s filming in Newcastle.

The BBC has confirmed that the next planned episode of Top Gear, due to air this Sunday, will be pulled, with the two remaining episodes of the current season also set to be axed.

In a statement, the BBC said Clarkson had been suspended “pending an investigation” following “a fracas with a BBC producer.”

It continued: “No one else has been suspended. Top Gear will not be broadcast this Sunday. The BBC will be making no further comment at this time.”

An online petition calling on Clarkson to be reinstated has already been signed by more than 300,000 people.

It’s not the first scandal involving Clarkson, who was recently given a final warning for the use of racially offensive terms after a string of incidents.

Top Gear exec producer Andy Wilman described 2014 as an “annus horribilis” for the programme after an incident in Argentina where Clarkson drove a car with a number plate apparently referencing the Falklands War, and another in Burma where he used a racially offensive term to describe a local man.

The BBC is left in a quandary, however, with the show a cash cow for BBCWW, which bought out Clarkson and Wilman’s stakes in Bedder 6, the show’s commercial rights company, in 2012 for an undisclosed fee.

Clarkson’s three-year contract on the show, signed at the same time as that deal was revealed, was expected to be extended earlier this year but has not been confirmed.