Amazon signed a deal worth a reported £160m with former Top Gear presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May – and it’s doing its best to get its money’s worth before their new series launches next year.
It has just launched an advert for Amazon’s Fire TV Stick featuring Clarkson, who is shown gliding around a country house on a Segway backed by Steppenwolf’s rock classic Born to be Wild.
In a reference to Clarkson’s exit from the BBC after his fracas with producer Oisin Tymon, he says: “Back in the spring, as you probably remember, I suddenly became un-busy and that was OK because I had one of these – an Amazon Fire TV stick.”
He adds: “Everything you could possibly want – Demand 5, Netflix …” before shaking his head when he sees the BBC iPlayer and skipping past to land on Amazon Prime. “It’s almost perfect. No, wait. It is perfect.”
Clarkson wrote in his Sunday Times column earlier this month that he was embracing the “dizzying world of narrowcasting” at Amazon, where there was “no finger-wagging” from bosses.
He tweeted from Portugal, where he has been testing cars such as a Ferrari, Porsche and McLaren with Hammond and May.
With a skeleton crew, filming for Amazon Prime's new motoring programme has begun. pic.twitter.com/8PaYvke5il
— Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) October 7, 2015
Forget the Segway – Clarkson clearly feels he’s back in the fast lane.
