
Amazon Sign Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May - charlieirish
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/celebritynews/amazon-sign-top-gears-jeremy-clarkson-richard-hammond-and-james-may-for-new-show-10426102.html
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johneth
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 Amazon is probably their worst choice in that regard (compared to Netflix
or even Sky). All I can assume is a lot of money was given to them, which
suggests Amazon is aggressively expanding into Europe (where C, H, M are
popular).

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vollmond
Are they doing anything illegal in their "tax-dodging"? If not, why would they
ever choose to pay more? I've never understood the point of vilifying
companies for using "loopholes" to pay less taxes. If there was a loophole
that allowed me to pay less income tax, I would absolutely take advantage of
it. Why give away more of my money than I have to? If you want them to pay
more, close the loophole that allows them to pay less.

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talmand
I've fought this battle for a long time. It seems for most it's just a way to
speak of their grievances against a company they don't like. It's just
pointing their finger at the company saying they obviously are an evil
corporation because they choose to take advantage of stupidly written tax laws
that are totally legal yet I choose to define them as something only bad
people do. Despite the fact they likely use similar "loopholes" in their own
taxes and justify it in some way.

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DanBC
I can't use similar loopholes.

Imagine an English person running an English business (eg, a tea shop with a
single store and no online presence) in England. They want to advertise to
people so they contact Google's English ad division and buy ads to be shown in
England. They pay using English money, from their English bank account to
Google's English bank account.

Somehow this doesn't count for English tax, somehow it's Irish tax.

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talmand
If it's covered by law and you qualify, you most certainly can use similar
loopholes. That's the thing, many times what people call "loopholes" are
actually badly written tax laws. Sometimes it is by mistake, sometimes it is
intentional for potentially nefarious reasons. But if you qualify, you can do
it.

Otherwise, there are similar "loopholes" in complex tax codes. You just need
to find them.

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DanBC
You're treating it as binary - compliant or not compliant. But laws are tested
in court. These companies claim to be compliant, but we don't know because UK
tax authorities avoid court for all bit the most flamboyant evaders. No case
law means we don't know if they're complying with law or not.

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JohnTHaller
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.

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cmiles74
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.

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

I assumed it was to push people to the FireTV.

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JohnTHaller
That's my guess. Especially since they hold Amazon Prime Video hostage from
Android users - even though we've already paid for it - until you install the
Amazon App Store on your device and give it every permission under the sun.

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andy_ppp
I love this mockery of Top Gear by Stewart Lee...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7CnMQ4L9Pc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7CnMQ4L9Pc)

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

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

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matwood
> 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...

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stephenr
I believe so yes.

I would have no problem subscribing to a company that provides access to TV
shows, movies etc.

I would have a big problem subscribing to Jeff Bezos' attempt to control the
entire commercial world.

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richoakley
In the same way as House of Cards isn't exclusive to Netflix, "Top Gear 2.0"
will be sold to multiple broadcasters and distributors all over the world.

Top Gear was worth about $80m a year to the BBC in selling the series
globally.

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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...

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samch
"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...](http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2015/07/30/former-top-gear-hosts-to-
launch-new-auto-series-for-amazon-prime/)

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

~~~
hyperpallium
While the lads are great, the cinematography, writing, crazy ideas (eg attack-
helicopter race) - and actually making them happen - are what make the show
IMHO. The hosts surely contribute a lot of the writing and ideas, though I
don't know how much, but much less execution.

I understand the show runner also left with them.

Unfortunately, they can't copy the format of TG due to copyright (eg game-show
formats are protected copyright subject matter). It's _possible_ they'll come
up with something even better, but more likely to be like Titanfall after CoD.

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surge
Now if only they'd fix their apps so A) could easily find shows they offer B)
won't play a video and just shows a spinning circle if the app sits idle for 5
minutes or just finished playing another video and going to the next episode
(always have to restart the app to fix it, happens on PS3/4 and Roku). I have
a great experience with Netflix, YouTube, even CrunchyRoll (for my anime
watching kid) and every other video platform.

I want to use their app more, I even buy seasons of shows off of it, but the
persistent problems make me hesitant to buy more.

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lmorris84
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.

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surge
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.

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darkr
> singing a song he didn't want to sing

The scripts are written by the cast & the script editor (Richard Porter).

> made to drink profusely as part of a show stunt

It's well known that Clarkson is a fan of the booze to the point where you
could reasonably categorise him as a functioning alcoholic. He recently
publicly announced after the death of Charlie Kennedy that he was giving up.
So I'm pretty sure that no-one was making him drink..

He likes to paint himself as the last bastion of free speech, innocent victim
of the facist Big Brother Corporation, and a lot of other things inbetween;
but the reality is that he's just that embarrassing Uncle who you have fond
memories of when he used to let you smoke his cigarettes and drive his car
around the block when you were 10, but now you're all grown up, going through
your contacts, deciding who to invite to your wedding; you just skip past
because you just know he'd end up shitting in the font and asking anyone with
a tan what weddings are like where they're from.

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lsaferite
I know this adds nothing to the discussion, but...

Every quote from those three is internally in their voice and cadence. I find
that quite amusing.

Anyone have some links or keywords I could look up to read more about that
phenomenon?

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SCAQTony
Everybody loses with the Clarkson fiasco. The Amazon deal will garner fewer
viewers and lack the production quality that the BBC offers. The BBC reboot
will have fewer viewers (from what I am told by British friends) and lack the
brand personality of the former three hosts.

Perhaps this could be likened to Howard Stern moving to satellite radio. Is he
as popular as he was when he was "free." The once self-declared "king of all
media" is rarely talked about now.

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

~~~
JosephRedfern
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.

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jarcane
Indeed you could. There's more than enough evidence to bear it out.

