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Amazon Sign Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May

standard.co.uk

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Re: Amazon Sign Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May

#31

Post by surge »

lmorris84 wrote: post #24

It'll be interesting to see how Amazon respond to the inevitable complaints when Clarkson does a "Clarkson". The BBC used to fall over themselves to apologise and give him another final warning - you'd have to assume this was discussed by both parties. Personally I hope Amazon just stay out of their way and let them get on with it.

I don't know, they stopped selling the confederate flag stuff, but they used to be renowned for selling books regardless of controversy of the content. So it could fall down either way.

Both incidents the BBC have him for he was coerced into situations (singing a song he didn't want to sing because he only knew the racist version from when he grew up and didn't want to say the word, then being kept up for 24 hours, and made to drink profusely as part of a show stunt) he wasn't comfortable with. They were looking for reasons to cancel such a popular show because it had such a disparate budget from the rest of their shows and that was upsetting parties within the BBC.

Re: Amazon Sign Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May

#32

Post by tiernano »

Feeling half and half on this... Good cause the lads are back... Bad because its Amazon Prime... I'm an Amazon Prime customer, but live in Ireland... Which means i can get stuff delivered (with the help of a UK address) for free, but i cant stream content... Keeps telling me about "Licensing issues". So, VPN will need to be used then...

Re: Amazon Sign Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May

#33

Post by DanBC »

msandford wrote: post #29
DanBC wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fine for people to tell offensive jokes. Is it fine for me to call Roy Chubby Brown lazy and stupid and unfunny because of his bad jokes? Is it fine for me to ask people providing me content to try harder to be funny, rather than just flinging shit and calling it a joke?

I always thought in HN land you got a certain amount of leeway to complain about how X needed to be better and it was OK. But then at some point -- because we recognize how the world actually works -- if you see that X can be better and nobody else can, the onus is on you to actually do X better and prove it. In the business world this is a startup. In comedy, I guess that means being a comedian. From what I can tell…

Well, okay. Let's change my question to "Is it fine for me to give my money to comedians I find funny, and not to comedians I don't find funny? And to then tell those comedians why I'm chosing not to buy their product?"

Re: Amazon Sign Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May

#34

Post by matwood »

cmiles74 wrote: post #22
JohnTHaller wrote: post #8

It's a shame they went to Amazon instead of Netflix since Amazon's video apps universally suck in comparison (I'm especially looking at the Xbox 360 and Xbox One Amazon apps). Heck, you can't even watch Amazon Prime Video on your Android device without compromising the security of the device and enabling untrusted app installs.

Pretty much the only acceptable way I've found to watch is via their Fire TV Stick. I don't understand why their apps for other platforms is so bad; they are literally the last place I look before I give up.

> I don't understand why their apps for other platforms is so bad;

I assumed it was to push people to the FireTV.

Re: Amazon Sign Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May

#35

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

JosephRedfern wrote: post #3
ris wrote: post #2

This is an interesting statement by Amazon about its stance on (persistent) racial slurs.

If you were to follow the same argument, you could also argue that the continued popularity of Top Gear is an equally interesting statement by society about it's stance on (persistent) racial slurs.

It should come as no surprise that there's a huge segment of society whose stance on racial slurs is 'more, please.'

Re: Amazon Sign Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May

#36

Post by matwood »

stephenr wrote: post #23
jkaljundi wrote: post #16

Available in just 5 or so countries out of 200 in the world. Another win for Pirate Bay.

Not to mention the people who could use it legally but refuse to subscribe to Amazon.

> Not to mention the people who could use it legally but refuse to subscribe to Amazon.

Is that any different than those who refuse to subscribe to Netflix, HBO or Showtime, etc...

Re: Amazon Sign Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May

#37

Post by brc »

andreamazz wrote: post #20

Hope they can also bring over the production values and the photography of BBC's TG.

It woudo be interesting to find out how many production staff they poach.

Perhaps they used a lot lf contract staff anyway and won't be a big deal.

Either way, with Andy Wilman in charge and undoubtedly a bigger budget, I would say it will improve, if anything.

That said, I doubt it will be a clone of TG. They probably have had some ideas they have wanted to try, but couldn't because of the BBC and because they wouldn't be 'top gear'.

Re: Amazon Sign Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May

#39

Post by samch »

tiernano wrote: post #32

Feeling half and half on this... Good cause the lads are back... Bad because its Amazon Prime... I'm an Amazon Prime customer, but live in Ireland... Which means i can get stuff delivered (with the help of a UK address) for free, but i cant stream content... Keeps telling me about "Licensing issues". So, VPN will need to be used then...

"Amazon can also license rights to the show to broadcasters or streaming services in other territories around the world where Prime video isn’t available."

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2015/07/30/former-top-gear-ho...

Re: Amazon Sign Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May

#40

Post by OedipusRex »

stephenr wrote: post #23
jkaljundi wrote: post #16

Available in just 5 or so countries out of 200 in the world. Another win for Pirate Bay.

Not to mention the people who could use it legally but refuse to subscribe to Amazon.

Agreed, Top Gear is not enough to warrant an Amazon Prime subscription for a majority of people.
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