The Nine Network has won the rights to Top Gear following a deal with BBC Worldwide Australia.
The deal includes both Top Gear Australia from Freehand and the UK series.
PBL Media already has the rights to the magazine and website topgear.com/au
“We are thrilled to create a unified home for the Top Gear brand in Australia” said Julie Dowding, BBC Worldwide Australia’s Sales Director. “This country is Top Gear’s biggest territory outside the UK. We greatly look forward to developing its potential with a long-standing partner like Nine.”
David Gyngell , Chief Executive of the Nine Network, described the Top Gear agreement as a landmark partnership with BBC Worldwide.
“We are absolutely delighted to be working together with one of the world’s great broadcasting powerhouses on a program of this quality and wide appeal,” he said. “Top Gear is quite simply an outstanding television product, and linking the experience and expertise of BBC Worldwide with the proven capacity of the Nine Network is a great outcome.”
“We are genuinely excited to have Top Gear under the Nine banner and look forward to bringing it to an even wider audience,” he added.
But for SBS the news was bitter.
SBS Managing Director Shaun Brown said: “It is disappointing that a brand SBS has spent many years building is moving to a commercial network.
“SBS was the only Australian network brave enough to take on the irreverent series in 2005 and we have built it into successful event television with a dedicated audience. We are proud of what we have achieved with Top Gear.
“SBS, with its limited resources, lives with the knowledge that while it can discover and develop great programs and events, it cannot always defend them from the aggressive bids of well-heeled competitors.”
SBS will not comment further.
can we add from ABC in the night garden this year
total bull**it. Top gear is shown in the UK on BBC2 which has no adverts. 55 mins approx. Yet when shown on 7 they show more adds than actual content…..oh eat s**t 7 totally ruined the show
Nine shows all of the international edition which is the same content the BBC made available to SBS. That’s why it went for 70 mins.
Show all of top gear not just sum of it! Or give it back to SBS were we see it all!!
Would you like some Top Gear with those Ads?
Great. instead of 55 min of good stuff that SBS trimmed from the 90 min show in UK we will end up with 40 mins of stuff on nine to allow for too much advertising. I love advertising…Not.
It will be interesting to see what time slot it gets.
this is bull**it channel 9 go home , leave it on sbs but take aus top gear
What a disaster. Nothing more to say about this.
well done Nine!
I Believe it will be a positive for the show, yes they should screen it as a 90 minute show so Nothing is cut ( though sbs cut major parts from the show already). Cant wait for the move.
Even though it was SBS’s best rating show, it still only got around the 800-900k mark. It would probably make a good flagship show for GO though.
“two words- one’s a male cow, the other is a description of the new network…”
That sums up my thoughts as well really…
Hopefully Nine broadcasts it in a 90 minute slot at least, and doesn’t cut anything out.