There are two subtexts to Amazon’s signing of Clarkson, Hammond, May and the Gear Change team. One is that it emerges almost simultaneously with another signing: of Alex Green, head of Instant Video at BT. So Amazon Prime Video’s fight with Netflix is fully joined.
But subtext two comes right back to the BBC. So far Amazon and its £79 subscription bundle has been a surprise friend of Broadcasting House. It commissioned another series of Ripper Street when the corporation ran short of funds – then kindly let the BBC have second rights. But now, with worldwide reach and worldwide sales capacity, it will pitch the essential old Clarkson against the new non-Jeremy BBC version – with some £50m global sales at stake. That’s war. That’s gore. And it also raises a spectre the BBC will need to confront. If it can’t beat them, does it then have to buy the Amazon version for secondhand showing, too? Car crash time down Bumper Street.
