It’s unsure how many Top Gear fans will be tuning in to the second episode tomorrow night.
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Speaking on the show on Sunday night (29.05.16) when the first episode of the revamped programme hit screens, he said: “If you find things vaguely amusing or you think they were supposed to be amusing please laugh”.
In the second episode, the Top Gear folks head out to Africa to test the Jaguar F-Pace, Porsche Macan and Mercedes-Benz GLC, Jenson Button gives Chris Evans a ride in a McLaren 675LT and the “Star in a Rallycross Car” for the week is actor Damian Lewis. This is a significant drop from last week’s already-disappointing total of 4.8 million.
The first episode drew 4.3 million viewers whereas the last episode of Clarkson’s show in 2015 brought in 5.8 million viewers.
However, Chris and the team have since delivered some good news, as it has been revealed that the figure for the first episode has now topped eight million, taking into account the people who watched it on demand and on the BBC iPlayer.
Soccer Aid on ITV also had a bigger audience, with an average 3.9 million viewers watching across the four-hour programme – including viewers watching on ITV+1.
The BBC motoring show – worth £50m a year to the BBC in worldwide sales – lost a third of its audience, pulling in just 2.8 million viewers, a 14% share of the audience on Sunday night.
When asked if he will jump ship and watch Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond on their new Amazon Prime show, the cheeky chap replied: “Of course”.
However, responses to the show on Twitter were more positive, with one viewer saying it was “a million times better than the first episode”.
He said: ‘It’s well known that Top Gear isn’t a live programme and that the show is edited after filming, but last week’s episode was edited in exactly the same way as previous series’.
In the U.S., Top Gear airs on BBC America.
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Leaked BBC audience data also supposedly ranked the show as the “worst” on terrestrial television last weekend.
