History: When Top Gear gave birth to Fifth Gear

Each one has its own fans -personally, I love them both. Since I�ve been playing a lot of video clips from both shows, I thought I�d share with you a little bit of history about the creation of Fifth Gear and what Top Gear had to do with it.

According to Wikipedia, the story has it that following the departure of presenter and TV persona, Jeremy Clarkson, Top Gear�s show rating started to flop so in 2001 BBC decided to pull the plug from the show after a whopping 24 years! -Luckily for us this was only temporary.

Then, along came Channel 5 which wanted to buy the Top Gear name from the BBC, which refused, so they created the similarly branded Fifth Gear TV Show in an attempt to take on the banner and audience which had been shed from the BBC after the axing.

Several of Top Gear's ex-presenters, including Quentin Willson, Tiff Needell and Vicki Butler-Henderson were hired by Channel Five to create the new motoring show.

Interesting facts

�The original format consisted of an approximately 23 minute programme. The 8th season returned in the Autumn of 2005 in a longer format of 45 minutes, which is closer to the relaunched version of Top Gear which is 60 minutes long.

�Besides giving out a car each programme, Fifth Gear is distinguishable from the current Top Gear in that it is typically less outrageous and more of a straightforward motoring show.

�The current presenters of Fifth Gear are Jon Bentley, Vicki Butler-Henderson, Tiff Needell, Jason Plato and Tom Ford.

�In the United States, the show is broadcast on SPEED Channel. The edited version of the show is also shown on Discovery Real Time.

Via: Wikipedia

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