Top Gear’s future: Yentob hopes James May and Richard Hammond will stay
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Version 0 of 1. Alan Yentob, the BBC’s creative director, said on Wednesday he hoped Top Gear presenters James May and Richard Hammond will stay at the BBC as he supported the BBC decision not to renew Jeremy Clarkson’s contract. In an interview on the Media Show, Yentob said the attack on Oisin Tymon was of a “different nature” to any of the other controversies surrounding the Top Gear presenter. Asked if Clarkson had been drinking or whether the BBC was to blame for extending the usual run from eight to 12 shows this season, Yentob said he didn’t know but added: “He has had a difficult couple of years, the schedule was very demanding but in the end … you have to look at the incident.” Saying he was involved in recruiting Clarkson “very early on”, he said: “This is a sad day for me. I’ve known him for a long time and am a big admirer.” But the suspension, he said, was “perfectly reasonable”. Asked if Top Gear presenters James May and Richard Hammond will stay, Yentob said “I hope so”. Speaking on the same show, Paul Staines, who used his Guido Fawkes blog to launch a petition to “bring back Clarkson”, said a section of the public felt unrepresented by the BBC: “White van man, including me, now has nothing to watch on a Sunday night … there’s a view the BBC doesn’t represent people like me. “He had to be punished in some way, but the question is over proportionality,” he said, adding that a “Christmas party bust-up” doesn’t end in “the factory being closed down”. Trevor Kavanagh, former political editor of the Sun, said Jeremy Clarkson was politically uncomfortable for the BBC and “grates against the nature of the BBC internally”. “This has been disgracefully badly managed by the BBC from the outset,” he added. |