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Sour grapes? ‘Top Gear’ show not worth Netflix’ money

Published Sep 7th, 2015 9:15PM EDT
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Netflix is one of the high-profile players that reportedly bid for the prominent Top Gear car TV show earlier this year, losing to Amazon, which is rumored to have bought 36 new episodes starring Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May for around $250 million. However, the popular streaming service says that Amazon overpaid for this particular show.

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The trio of presenters departed the BBC shortly after Clarkson was fired, with Netflix said to have been the front-runner at one point to scoop them up for a similar show. However, Netflix’ chief product officer told Digital Spy that the new Top Gear “wasn’t worth the money.”

“Our buying decisions tend to be somewhat data-driven. We have a lot of data to get the deals we want, so there we go,” Hunt said. “Clearly it wasn’t worth the money to make the deal… I think they sold themselves for way more money [than they’re worth].”

In a follow-up, Hunt said that “there is an audience for everything and it is not up to us to judge if Amazon has paid too much or not.”

Meanwhile, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said the rights for the new show that will be hosted by the three famous Top Gear presenters were “very, very, very expensive,” without actually mentioning a price.

Since then, a report revealed an unknown detail about the Top Gear bidding war. Apparently, Apple was also interested in buying the show, as it plans to make original content for Apple TV in the future.

Chris Smith Senior Writer

Chris Smith has been covering consumer electronics ever since the iPhone revolutionized the industry in 2008. When he’s not writing about the most recent tech news for BGR, he brings his entertainment expertise to Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and other blockbuster franchises.

Outside of work, you’ll catch him streaming almost every new movie and TV show release as soon as it's available.