New look Top Gear

Should they really be advertising addresses they have no control over then, and should they be advertising one social media platform above others. IMO they should just direct people to their own website and then put the links to any social media platforms there.

The biggest problem Top Gear seems to have is that The Sun has massively taken against Chris Evans, for whatever reason. When you're taking over from hugely established presenters who've been doing it for years and were loved by its fans, you need all the help you can get.

As it is I'm expecting more tales of woe about the overnight figures given the competition tonight which will ignore the consolidated figure when it comes out.

Clarkson has a column in the Sun doesn't he?

At their stablemate The Sunday Times, at any rate.

It's also worth remembering who the proprietor of The Sun & Times is, and what other rival company they have a stake in.

With regards to the episode itself I find the interview section of the 'Star in the Reasonably Priced Rally Car' to be a bit clunky and feels stretched out. I wonder if this is to help with editing for the overseas market / 45min repeats on Dave. It'll be interesting to see if next week's episode has any tweaks, as it'll be the first to have been recorded since the 1st episode aired, meaning they'll have some viewer feedback.

The Sun likes to be on whatever side they seem to think is or will be popular. Ratings are down for the second episode. I do think Chris himself hasn't had a fair ride up until the launch of the new series, but having last week's episode, I can see why some are not taken with it. You just can't help think this is what Jeremy would do, or you can hear his voice, or trying to hard.

Another thing I noticed about SIARCC is when they got to plugging Damien Lewis's new series, they mentioned the time it's on Sky Atlantic and the fact it was on Box Set, Chris went on to say he box set it and thought it was great. That must have been sailing very close to the wind in relation to rules about BBC presenters endorsing products.

Thing is, The Sun's outright hostility to Chris Evans seems to exceed even its usual BBC-bashing and vested interests - it seems targeted at him, even to the point of praising Matt Le Blanc. Others can speculate as to why that's the case.

In terms of the ratings, Chris has a point in that overnights are not as relevant as they used to be and consoldated figures remain impressive. Thing is, did anyone ever measure the previous series of Top Gear like this? It's not as fun or immediate for a tabloid to do but I imagine would give you an accurate pointer as to how things are going. In as much as you can get a pointer after two episodes.

Did Chris rub them up the wrong way during his TFI days? I know the papers hold grudges with celebrities for reasons that aren't blatant. I found out that, in the run up before Stuart Lubbock's death, the red tops were out to get Michael Barrymore simply because he wouldn't grant them any interviews.

According to the Metro, "an audience member" told the Sun that canned laughter was added to the first episode to cover awkward silences. This is why take any smear about this show with a pinch of salt. Every negative scoop seems to come from the Sun. You'd think any credible scoop would be picked up by more than one paper.

In the early days Chris Evans' people went out of their way to court The Sun - whether it all went a little wrong when Evans started to meltdown during the Radio 1 Breakfast Show I don't know. He did rub a lot of people up the wrong way in the past and I figured his reinvention and transition to a Middle England Radio 2-friendly breakfast show presenter had dealt with that, but you wonder if some people were just waiting for a moment of weakness.

I do think he's shooting himself in the foot by excessively harping on about ratings. I'm rather keen for the show to do well but it shows little else but insecurity if you find yourself saying "look at how many people are watching, isn't it great!?" Not only does it shine a bad light on him, but if/when the figures fall, he'll look rather silly.

I would reckon the Sun are pushing him to meltdown as he does it so spectacularly. If they can get him fired from TG and he walks from Radio 2 then they will be laughing.

Evans does have a history of behaving like a spoilt brat.

He produced a show for Channel 5 at 7pm 5 nights a week hosted by Chris Moyles. Now Moyles is no saint but he spoke to Evans about the show and said it needed to slow down slightly as the viewers were missing the comedy.

From that point on Evans refused to speak to Moyles ever again as Moyles dared to disagree with Evans.
He was then dropped after the first series and Christian O'Connell replaced him. It died a death after series 2.