Top Gear's Viewing Figures Are Consistent, But Still Way Off The Clarkson Era

With an average of 2.7 million people tuning it to watch last Sunday’s Top Gear, it was both good and bad news for the revamped show.

First the bad: that’s around the same as the second episode of last series. So it hasn’t improved on the messy, Chris Evans-fronted series 23, and its 11 per cent audience share pales in comparison to the big winner of the night, Call The Midwife.

The period drama - which Jeremy Clarkson used to poke fun at due to previous ‘clashes’ with Top Gear’s Sunday night slot - accounted for 36 per cent, pulling in close to nine million viewers. To make matters worse, TG’s 2.7 million is still a long way off the kind of figures Clarkson, Hammond and May used to manage - the trio’s last series at the helm regularly saw over six million watching.

The good news? The modest figures are holding steady. During series 23, the ratings dramatically fell from 4.4 million to 2.8 million from the first to second episode, before falling even further.

It’s perhaps a sign that viewers are liking what they see this time around. We’re certainly fond of the new look show, and hopefully in time it’ll find its feet after this solid start. Top Gear is arguably more about cars than it has been in a while, so it’s something we’re keen to see stay on air.