Jeremy Clarkson: Goodbye BBC, hello Sky or ITV?

Jeremy Clarkson has been suspended from the BBC, and Top Gear cancelled, after Clarkson was involved in a punching fracas with a BBC producer.

Jeremy Clarkson and the BBC has been an accident waiting to happen for years. The ever increasingly PC BBC and the very un-PC Clarkson were always uneasy bedfellows, but now it looks like the BBC has finally found a way to close down Clarkson, and Top Gear, after a belligerent Jeremy threw a punch at a BBC producer.

It seems Jeremy was rather peeved, at the end of a day’s shooting, to find there was no food laid on to keep his temple of a body functioning at peak performance, blamed the producer and gave him a slap. Silly man.

Still, worst things happen at sea, and in a commercial environment a solution would have been found that punished Clarkson and appeased the punchee. But not at the Beeb.

Instead, Clarkson has been suspended with an investigation pending and the rest of the current Top Gear run – Series 22 – has been dropped from the schedules. Which is a bit of foot-shooting from the BBC.

In truth, Clarkson is a bit of an oaf; a minor public school bully with opinions that resonate with many but without a filter to know where to draw the line. But he is amusing, and he is good at his job. And, frankly, most of the controversies he’s been involved in have been storms in a teacup involving statements out of context, or bad taste jokes taken by the thin-skinned as statements of opinion.

So what will happen to Jeremy Clarkson and Top Gear now?

Unfortunately for Jeremy, he sold out his major chunk of the commercial rights of Top Gear to the BBC a few years ago, so he probably can’t take Top Gear – or at least the name – elsewhere.

But there’s no question that both Sky and ITV would be ready, willing and able to stump up far more money for a ‘New’ Top Gear than Clarkson gets from the Beeb, if the Beeb are daft enough to finally get rid of Clarkson.

If the BBC had any sense they’d find a solution to this bit of nonsense, but they probably won’t. They’re not answerable to shareholders, so they can do as they please even if it leaves a big hole in their income and schedules.

Or, as Jeremy would put it, they’ll probably bring in a one-legged, black, dwarf lesbian to take his place and see Top Gear soar to new heights as the most PC car show…in the world.