Chris Evans’ Top Gear has dropped to its lowest Sunday night audience of any episode since it was reinvented by Jeremy Clarkson nearly a decade and a half ago.
The BBC2 motoring show, which was handed to Radio 2 breakfast DJ Evans after Clarkson was axed last year, fell to 2.34 million viewers for the fourth episode of its new run on Sunday.
It was the lowest overnight audience of the new series to date, just over half the 4.3 million viewers who watched its return three weeks ago, and below the previous record low, of 2.36 million viewers on 15 June 2003.
Its total audience, including people who recorded it and watch it over the next seven days – and on the BBC’s iPlayer – is likely to be substantially higher.
But it will still be hugely disappointing for the BBC, which has seen the show’s overnight audience cut in half since Clarkson’s departure, followed out the door by his former Top Gear co-presenters, Richard Hammond and James May.
Critics’ reception of the show since it was reinvented by Evans, one of a team of new presenters including former Friends star Matt LeBlanc and German racing driver Sabine Schmitz, has ranged from lukewarm to outright hostile.
It was always going to be an uphill challenge to step into the shoes of Clarkson, who had 22 series to perfect his presenting style, 21 of them alongside Hammond and May.
Under the trio, alongside executive producer Andy Wilman, it became less a motoring show and more a sitcom about three middle aged men messing about with cars.
The chemistry has been impossible to emulate, and not helped by reports of internal tensions on the new show and the premature departure of its executive producer, Lisa Clark.
Evans has dismissed reports of difficulties on the show, including reports that he did not get along with LeBlanc – but now the show appears in need of further reinvention.
Top Gear is one of the BBC’s most-valuable properties, earning an estimated £50m for its commercial arm, BBC Worldwide.
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