Top Gear Comes to the Nine Network

The world’s biggest motoring entertainment show Top Gear will move to the Nine Network following the conclusion of a deal with BBC Worldwide Australia.

Jeremy Clarkson, James May, Richard Hammond and The Stig will arrive at their new home in early 2010.

The deal includes Top Gear Australia from Freehand, BBC Worldwide’s production partner.

The move is a further consolidation of BBC Worldwide’s relationship with PBL Media. Top Gear Australia Magazine, the country’s most widely-read men’s monthly and the online home of the brand, sit within Park Publishing, the BBC Worldwide Australia / ACP joint venture.

“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.

Top Gear is an International Emmy-award winning show whose audience is more than 40% female. Top Gear is viewed in more than 120 countries and has enjoyed enormous success in Australia in recent years, building its presence with the UK and Australian series, Top Gear Australia magazine, the Top Gear Live show and huge retail success with DVDs and merchandise.

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User comments

nine i rember when you took over the coverage of the NFL and i still rember how you messed it up, if you do the same job to top gear i will refuse to watch the show ,just think about what you are about to do with a great show.Please let me know what you are doing not to wreck the show

I read a comment on another site that TG won't in fact be coming to the current channel Nine but will in fact be screened on their second digital channel... Which is all well and good for those fans who have the capacity to pick UP the second channel if that's true... Too bad for the viewer if they don't eh?

You just know they will cram it full of ads and chop it up to make it fit a schedule they are completely incapable of sticking to. Everything starts and finishes late. And then they will skip it for a few weeks only for it to turn up being shown at midnight. Thank God for having a HDD to record it. That way I can skip all your rubbish ads and then it doesn't matter what time you put it on. Please channel 9 take some sort of heed of the comments people are writing. We are the people who keep your channel going so don't treat us so badly.

Top Gear is the best show available on free to air. Ch9 should feel lucky and privelidged that they were able to obtain a show with such a strong fan base. I beg that they don't do to this show what they have done to so many other good shows by constantly changing the time slot and pounding the viewers with too many ads. Do not cut down the show from its 60 minute duration to fit in these ads, maybe make the show go for 1.5hrs if absolutely need be. Also do not destroy the Australian series of the show. Keep it aimed at true motoring enthusiests and don't put on loud mouthed personalities to host it. (Warney would be a great mistake) Please Ch9, I beg you to treat Top Gear and its fans with the greatest respect as SBS has in the previous years. PLEASE!!

Well, after Nine was voted the least realiable of all the commercial channels recently you can pretty much count on them cocking this awesome program up completely. They'll chop and change times, stuff it full of adds and probably even wangle Fat Eddy and a myriad of bogan football idiots into it, before consigning it to a time slot nobody will watch it in. ***!

This is not good at all. There is going to be more adds than the show itself.

Seriously? On SBS it works, you get all that you want and more. SBS has looked after the show and made it theirs in Aus and if channel nine think they can just come in and change everything that SBS has set up then they are very mistaken. WARNING If you change the show in any way no-one will watch channel nine. i find youtube a great place to go when TV channels stuff up

I can't wait for Top Gear Australia on Nine next year....with Shane Crawford, Shelley Craft and that Natalie sheila from Farmer Wants A Wife hosting...

Channel 9 do not stuff up this show by playing too many adds or editing this SBS have done well copy them

I'm really worried if you are going to try to cram the show into an hour timeslot - the show runs for 60 minutes in the UK. My feeling is that it will be butchered, and the star in a reasonably priced car segment is first on the chopping block. Don't you dare ruin this show.

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