The tenure of SBS TV as the home of Top Gear in Australia will cross the line on Monday evening. The final episode via SBS will air at 7:30pm and is one from the vault—the final episode of Season 4—which originally aired in August 2004.
It’s a great snapshot showing how far the show has come. Even with four seasons behind it history has shown the Top Gear journey has been taken to a whole new level, with even higher production values and an ever increasing ambition apparent in following years.
However, this ending doesn’t mean the end of Top Gear on Australian screens. You will probably remember Channel Nine have come in and thrown their weight around to secure the rights from SBS.
So far, though, Nine have been quite circumspect in revealing their plans for Top Gear. Certainly nothing is given away on the makeshift Top Gear page on the Channel Nine website. A small hint was given last December via a Daily Telegraph article when station boss David Gyngell said, “You put it on the back of Underbelly or Two and a Half Men, that show’s going to turn into a very big hit.”
Which, depending on your viewing habits, might send a few shivers down your spine. Let’s hope the big wigs don’t cock it up too much.
8 replies on “Across the line”
As long as the episodes can be seen ad free prior to their airing on 9 it really does not change things much for Top Gear fans.
For increasing ratings, arguably if you have not seen it at the 7.30 Monday SBS slot, I doubt they will find a better place for it considering it is arguably ‘family’ tv.
Big shame that Nine seems to be showing the old season. Would much prefer they telecast the episodes as they happen so the news isn’t 12mths old by the time we see it.
It sucked on SBS and will suck even more on Nine. Cutting a 60min program down to 41mins is wrong.
lol then get the real thing 🙂 I do watch it every now and then on TV.
Free to air is for plebs. Take the scraps you’re given scumbags. 😛
their little dig at BBC/CH9/whoever at the end last night was pretty well done too….
I didn’t catch that Micky, are you able to give a rundown?
I had a laugh when I saw the SBS dig at the end of the credits – I hope someone recorded it & puts it up on youtube. Anyway, for those who missed this, it was a series of edits from the show arranged something like:
“Top Gear changes gear”,
(cuts to vision of Hamster struggling to change gears in the Corvette),
“And moves to”
(The black Stig drives off the aircraft carrier),
“Another station for”
(Clarkson yelling ‘a big bag of money!’)