Top Gear’s executive producer Andy Wilman is working with BBC bosses to see what can be saved of the films shot for the three episodes of the show pulled after Jeremy Clarkson’s suspension.
A large amount of footage has already been shot for the three programmes which had been due to be broadcast earlier this month.
Wilman is understood to be working with BBC2 controller Kim Shillinglaw to see what material could be used and how it would be packaged.
It remains to be seen whether Clarkson’s former co-presenters, James May and Richard Hammond would return, in either a short or long-term capacity, or whether the BBC would broadcast footage of Clarkson already filmed following its decision not to renew his contract.
Wilman issued a statement on Tuesday after a leaked email he sent to more than 100 people who worked on the show appeared to suggest he was following Clarkson out of the door.
Wilman said it was “not a resignation statement” but a “private note of thanks”. The BBC said Wilman was still a member of its staff and had not resigned.
However, speculation is sure to continue around Wilman’s future.
A long time friend and colleague of Clarkson, the pair reinvented Top Gear in 2002, since when it has become one of the corporation’s most valuable global brands earning £50m a year, watched by 6 million viewers on BBC2 and 350 million people around the world.
In his email, Wilman said: “I know none of us wanted it to end this way, but for a moment I’d like us to look back and think about just what an incredible thing you all had a hand in creating. When Jane Root gave us the green light in 2002, the brief was to reinvigorate a car show and get an audience of 3 million.
“What you all ended up making was one of the most iconic programmes in TV history, a show about cars that went global, won countless awards, was devoured by non car fans and ended up in the Guinness Book of Records.”
He added: “We had a lot of laughs, we had a lot of tiffs. We went to amazing places and we went to some shitholes. We nearly killed a presenter, we had to run for the border. We started off with whoever we could get in the Reasonably Priced Car, and ended up with Tom Cruise.
“Our stint as guardians of Top Gear was a good one, but we were only part of the show’s history, not the whole of it. Those two words are bigger than us. When you’re feeling low in your working day at any point, look around at some of the crap on TV, then have a think about Top Gear, 2002- 2015, and say to yourself: ‘I made that.’”
Kim Shillinglaw, the BBC’s former science and natural history chief who was put in charge of BBC2 and BBC4 last year, has been tasked by BBC director general Tony Hall with reinventing Top Gear in 2016 and looking at “how we put out the last programmes in the current series”.
The final three episodes of the series were pulled on 10 March after Clarkson was suspended following a “fracas” with a member of the programme’s production team.
The BBC announced last week it would not be renewing the presenter’s contract after an internal inquiry concluded that Clarkson was responsible for an unprovoked 30-second attack that left Oisin Tymon bleeding and seeking hospital treatment.
