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

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

#41

Post by DanBC »

surge wrote: post #31
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, a…

> Both incidents the BBC have him for he was coerced into situations

There are many more than two incidents!

> 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.

Surely they could have just pointed to the money it made back? "We give it huge budget because it earns more money for us than anything else we produce".

The BBC has a history of poor management of talent. See eg Chris Evans getting sacked from the Breakfast Show after making demands.

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

#42

Post by msandford »

DanBC wrote: post #33
msandford wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?"

Absolutely vote with your wallet! It's one of the great features of capitalism that few disparage. Avail yourself of the opportunity.

I get the whole "I want to tell people why I'm not buying their product" mentality and whatnot. I feel the same way a lot of times. But complaining in general isn't going to get you anywhere and even if this HN thread totally blows up, it's not going to sway anyone at Amazon or Clarkson, Hammond or May. It'll literally never be on their radar.

So at this point you're complaining for the sake of complaining. Fair enough! I do it all the time too.

But you're not really telling them anything, since they'll never see it.

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

#43

Post by yokohama11 »

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.

If he wasn't on BBC (which as a state broadcaster has far more political sensitivity) it probably wouldn't have been so much of an issue in the UK.

Most of his "controversies" would not even be news in the US. A person on a humorous show cracking a racial/ethnic joke is on TV every night.

We have nothing like OFCOM where you could actually get in trouble with the government for being highly offensive either.

And celebrities behaving badly is typical, so assaulting someone probably wouldn't lead to any major public outcry for his firing. It's not as though Sean Penn has trouble finding work.

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

#44

Post by arnold_palmur »

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.

Seems to be the case all around - I have a "smart" TV and the Amazon video app is astonishingly bad. As a big fan Top Gear, I was really hoping the gang would end up on Netflix.

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

#45

Post by yokohama11 »

DanBC wrote: post #15
stephenr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how a guy saying something that offends some people once, is "a persistent racial slur"?

And there's the stuff about "slopes". And the stuff about gypsies. And the stuff about Mexicans. And all the other stuff. http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/here-are-all-the-nonra... http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/jere... Here's a useful Graniad opinion piece about Clarkson: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/08/not-eno... It's a persistent pattern. Whether that should affec…

He makes comments about every group, I've seen no persistent bias against any group (aside from politicians who make it less fun to drive).

And he certainly doesn't exclude himself/his own type, as there's something negative about the UK practically 30 seconds.

As for "it's just a joke", yes, it is. Pretty much every successful comedian uses ethnicity/race sometimes. Bad ones rely on it entirely (Ex: Carlos Mencia). But as something that should be off limits for humor? No.

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

#46

Post by SyneRyder »

johneth wrote: post #10

As much as I enjoy watching those three mess around on TV, I'm not giving tax-dodging Amazon £80 (~$125) a year for the privilege. Prime seems to have a poor UI (and from what I've read has an inferior service in the UK in terms of apps and content). I wouldn't benefit from the next day delivery because I don't order enough from them. Their (Clarkson, Hammond, May) audience will decrease wherever they ended up, but A…

Amazon might be looking to expand Prime Video into Australia as well, where Clarkson, Hammond & May have just finished touring Australia with their live arena show. They're so popular, they could sell tickets at $89 - $399 each:

http://www.clarksonhammondandmaylive.com.au/

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

#48

Post by closetnerd »

johneth wrote: post #10

As much as I enjoy watching those three mess around on TV, I'm not giving tax-dodging Amazon £80 (~$125) a year for the privilege. Prime seems to have a poor UI (and from what I've read has an inferior service in the UK in terms of apps and content). I wouldn't benefit from the next day delivery because I don't order enough from them. Their (Clarkson, Hammond, May) audience will decrease wherever they ended up, but A…

Actually TopGear has pretty strong following in the US as well.

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

#50

Post by omonra »

johneth wrote: post #10

As much as I enjoy watching those three mess around on TV, I'm not giving tax-dodging Amazon £80 (~$125) a year for the privilege. Prime seems to have a poor UI (and from what I've read has an inferior service in the UK in terms of apps and content). I wouldn't benefit from the next day delivery because I don't order enough from them. Their (Clarkson, Hammond, May) audience will decrease wherever they ended up, but A…

To be fair, Amazon doesn't appear to be making any money to dodge taxes on :)
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