After I finish this post, I'm off to the U.P.S. store to post a memory stick of my audition for Top Gear (posted on YouTube here). Thanks in part to the writers' strike, NBC is attempting to fashion a uniquely American version of the highly sarcastic (to say the least) British program. It's important to note that British Top Gear airs on public TV; which is funded by a TV tax. The U.S. version will air on "free" TV, funded almost entirely by advertising. Now I'm not sure how much of GM's $2.1b annual ad spend the peacock network enjoys, but I bet it's a fair old whack. And Ford's no stranger to signing huge checks with the letters "NBC" in the important space. Not to mention Chrysler, Mercedes, BMW, Subaru and the rest of The Truth About Cars fan club. So you gotta wonder about the relationship between my chances and American Top Gear's editorial freedom. My brilliant career aside (as it has been for many years), the idea of a mainstream TV show that "dares" to be critical of crap cars sounds preposterous. But I've still got that Honda-friendly ELO song ringing in my ears. So WTH. I'm sending the stick (not Stig). Wish me luck. And rest assured that while every man may have his price, the ability to tell the truth is mine. I know.. I should be so lucky. Well, guess what? I am.
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I liked your audition. Best of luck. But you won’t want to be on an American version of Top Gear for the reasons mentioned in the podcast – you won’t be allowed to say anything negative. The American version will be like newspaper movie reviews – the scale will range from good to great.
Careful, Robert. That ice is slick.
For some odd reason, I always imagined you having a beard. Not that you’re in my imagination often, but well, you get the idea.
In response to the podcast –
Wanted to comment on brand dillution and the Mega store concept. RF says, that the Mega store dillutes brand identity. Usually I find that I’m in close agreement with RF on branding issues.
However, I don’t think it’s as big a problem as it might seem. When you shop at a jewlery store you can get a Seiko or a Rolex at the same store. They won’t be side by side in the display case, but they’ll be in the same building. You might not find a Timex in this same store, but that isn’t a problem for GM because their product only ranges from Timex to Seiko anyway. They don’t really have a Cartier-like product that can’t be sold under the same roof. Perhaps the buildings could have separate pod showrooms to keep brands separated.
Even if you can’t have Chevy and Caddy under the same roof, why can’t you have 3 or 4 or 5 of GM’s brands share a building while the remainder are in another? Toyota/Lexus dealers are infamous for being side by side, with a parking lot that links them. Separate buildings, separate product, but really part and parcel of the same operation.
It won’t be any good without that lovely British accent saying things like “Quatroporte”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dapq_Hoxcrg
Top Gear is a unique mix between the cars and the specific personalities they have on the BBC. Editorial issues aside, I don’t see this going far.
Did anyone see the NBC Sports show on the Detroit Auto Show this weekend? I hope it’s not a preview.
I still think there’s a difference between brand focus and absolute unwavering brand tunnel vision. Brand expansion doesn’t have to be a negative thing. Just because Lexus makes quiet luxury cars doesn’t mean they can’t make fast ones or ones that handle exceptionally well.
For me you audition seemed too upbeat, happy.
It kind of lacked the sharp, sarcastic tone of your podcasts.
And I think you need long hair, ponytail. ;)
But that’s just me.
I would watch TopGear USA anyway, should be a hell of fun!
Dynamic88 : Even if you can’t have Chevy and Caddy under the same roof, why can’t you have 3 or 4 or 5 of GM’s brands share a building while the remainder are in another? Toyota/Lexus dealers are infamous for being side by side, with a parking lot that links them. Separate buildings, separate product, but really part and parcel of the same operation. In theory, sure, why not? In practice, you cannot be serious. Rolex is a coherent brand. As is Seiko. And Ebel. And Porsche Design. Yes, there is some badge engineering in the watch world; Cartier’s timepieces share their movement with… uh… someone. But there’s no mistaking one brand for the other. So it is possible for different watch brands to share retail space– although I can assure you they only do so because they bloody well have to. Saturn is not a focused, coherent brand. Nor is Chevy. Or Saab. Or Pontiac. Or Buick. Or GMC. Hummer? Yes. Cadillac, yes, despite itself. So, five out of eight GM brands are, at the moment, born (bored?) losers. Lumping them together into a single showroom will do NOTHING to strengthen them and, potentially, a great deal to nail shut their coffin. Did I say potentially? Let’s face it: GM’s branding acumen is, by and large, non-existent. If there’s a way to screw-up this inherently risky proposition, they’ll find– I mean, blunder their way into it. Of course, the counter-argument is that the “GM Collections” (they couldn’t even get the numerical appellation right) is actually a subtle ruse to destroy the brands, not strengthen them. How screwed-up is THAT? Let’s build dealerships that help us terminate our once great automotive brands! If GM was serious about getting its brands in shape, we all know what they have to do: build brand-specific products embodying a simple branding proposition. Chevy… uh. Pontiac: excitement! Saab… ummm. Buick… errr. Hummer: off-road. GMC… trucks! Cadillac: the world’s best sedans. Saturn… don’t rush me. If GM's brands were tightly focused, if each brand's products offered world-class realization of their basic premise/promise, you could sell the vehicles out of a tent. Otherwise, you might as well sell them out of a tent. If you know what I mean.
I watched the YouTube audition.
Gong… (a respectful gong)
I thought there had already been a triler for TG in the US that was burned up.
I think there’s only one option if you want to go the TV route. TTAC TV.
TG is a great show and I highly doubt NBC can make a proper go at it without turning it into a different car show entirely.
Here’s my formula for a successful and probably very unpopular show.
-Test the heck out of the vehicles
-Discuss them in the context of what they are supposed to do and are actually capable of doing.
-Discuss reliability as it never seems to be dicussed on television
-Find great locations
-Hire a proper production crew – Top Gear excels at this..probably the most beautiful show on TV
-Have a panel evaluate and discuss the vehicles oncamera. People with different experience at different stages of their lives.
-Flat-out copy TG’s celebrity interviews. This is a great segment. Find car people as guests. Make the reasonably priced car a Prius …lol
-Copy TGs challenges. That Winter Olympics episode was hilarious AND brilliant.
what makes Top Gear BBC successful (and doomed for failure in any US-reincarnation):
editorial independence;
the geniuses that work in BBC’s music department; (Top Gear and most other BBC programs always play the perfect background music for their shows)
quirky British wit.
What you’ll see in a Top Gear USA…
countless sucking up for automakers (see PBS’s MotorWeek), endless guitar riffs for background music and lame, dorky presenters.
HAHA loved the fall RF. Good luck man.
What the slatester said….+1
The TG guys behind the cameras and their editing mavens seem to come up with pretty good work as well. I find the whole thing fairly quirky and quite entertaining.
I can see NumBC making a complete mess of it.
I don’t see how the US version will be allowed to make the sarcastic comments about the different cars in a show that accepts advertiser money from Detroit. It will be a ‘gong’ imo. NBC is just too ‘scared’ to pull of a really controversial show about the domestic auto industry. It will be so watered down as to be just another soap. If they put it on cable/satellite, then it may stand a chance but only because they can use the true four letter words to describe the products.
I’ll paraphrase a remark I heard from NBC regarding the development of the show:
“This show will allow us flexibility to do creative tie-ins with our advertisers.”
That, right there is why this show will be TEH FAILS!!11
PS: I always pictured you with a beard too.
RF
I agree with you that GM brands are not focused and coherent. But that’s the whole point here. If they were focused and coherent, the salesman could wisk you to whichever wing of the building served your needs. GM can’t get focused if it needs to give 8 different stand alone dealers something to sell in every (or most) market segments.
You’re right that different watch brands are only sold under the same roof because they have to be – but it’s the same with cars. Only a very few jewlers can get buy selling just the Rolex brand. Only a very few stand alone Caddy dealers can make it, and only in the large metro areas. Same with Buick and Pontiac and GMC, and Hummer. And that would be true even if all these brands were focused and coherent. How big is the market for Excitement? (Assuming Pontiac actually did sell excitement) How big is the market for the American Lexus (Assuming Buick is or could become the American Lexus). How big is the market for a cloned Chevy PU to be sold by non-Chevy dealers? (Here’s a division ready to be junked). Even if Saab actually stood for something, how many stand alone Saab dealers could stay alive? (Are there any stand alone Saab dealers?)
In most places a Chevy dealer can stand alone. Most of the other divisions can’t.
P.S.
You’re right that merely lumping them together doesn’t get the job done. They have to actually make the divisions different, and have coherent brand strategies. I think the combined sales channel makes this possible.
How many stand alone Hummer dealers are there again?
Wow, I feel old. No surprise what Robert looked like, but I can remember when TTAC had an “About Us” section or something of that nature with photos of most of the prominent writers.
Robert, good luck. No offense, but I don’t see this happening. You’re a little too, um, direct to be selected for something like this. We would enjoy it though…
Since we can be assured that we won’t get blunt honesty from this show we have to hold out for humor. I really wanna see Jeff Foxworth and Bill Engvall do this.
This project is so doomed, no way NBC does this right. MAYBE, if they grabbed some ireverant folks off here and jalopnik.
My prediction?
Carson Daly, Ryan Seacrest, and Jessica Simpson will be the hosts. They’ll love every car they drive, and only drive cars from their advertisers.
Indeed, as soon as I heard the NBC was doing Top Gear, our good Mr. Farago immediately came to mind as the perfect host.
As good as the audition tape was (it was brilliant!) I would be shocked if the show doesn’t go with a trio of C-list-ebrities.
Of course, it could always try the middle ground.
“NBC presents Top Gear! With Bob Farago, Tara Reid, and Carrot Top!”
Just imagine the seething…
In addition to Robert, I’d like to see the following presenters: Jay Leno as the elder statesman/resident comic, Jesse James as the no-holds-barred hoon, and an un-named, but super-capable driver as “The Stig”. To get around the inevitable kissing-up to the sponsors, I’d recommend rotating them and their products. e.g., Ford presents reviews of GM cars, GM presents reviews of Toyota products, etc. There are enough manufacturers to cobble together at least one season’s worth of shows.
put GM cars all together under one roof? then people could see all the suck choices and get bad service at the same time anything decent – caddy cts, nu ‘bu(maybe)& G8 would would drowned in a sea of inadequacy. and trucks.
they already have a sucky tv as a model, its called car & driver TV on speed.
I’ve just thought of something. It takes UK Top Gear months to put together a handful of shows (6-10 usually). That’s why the previous effort to make Top Gear USA didn’t pan out. Clarkson didn’t want to have to spend so much time away from his family and friends. How much time are they going to have to make enough material for…let’s say ten halfway decent shows?
FYI, we still have a standalone Buick dealer in Nashville: Waller Buick. It is a sad, sad place. It’s one block from a major public housing project just South of downtown in a neighborhood that, quite frankly, Buick customers are afraid to visit. They might move one new car a month. I look after an elderly woman’s car who lives near the dealership and I’ve run up to their service department several times to ask a favor of the lone mechanic on duty in the six empty service bays. I have no idea what this dealership must be running out the back door to keep the lights on.
If it was on HBO, maybe it would have the editorial independence and budget to really shine.
NBC is probably the most notorious of the big 3 networks for corporate micromanagement of progam content to suck up to advertisers.
I imagine an NBC-based TG would be as corporate-PR-bland and gutless as most US auto magazines have become.
You’ve probably thought about this already, and it would be a bunch of work, but you could produce your own five-minute mini-shows featuring a review and a rant and post them on Youtube.
If nothing else, you might drive a little more traffic to TTAC.
Strange, but I also imagined Robert having a beard, and being shorter.
I’ll grow a beard already.
To me, Top Gear *is* Jeremy Clarkson. Sarcastic, hilarious, and beholden to no one. The man can, and does, skewer Lamborghinis. But even he’s not enough; the crowd, the Stig, the production values, the other two presenters (Hamster is fantastic), the celebrity interviews, British accents, and imagination combine to push it above any beyond any other product-based show.
I’d be shocked if an American show could emulate even two of the above. The ones I’ve seen have the inexplicable ability to reduce a Corvette Z06 to a puddle of boredom.
5th Gear is another example. They’ve got the irrepressible Tiff Needell, three other interesting hosts, fine vehicles, British accents, and decent production values. Far more than any American show could hope to accomplish. But it’s not half the show Top Gear is, and the viewership reflects it.
Even with a truly inspired director, I’m with Slate: advertising reliance will kill any attempts at an American equivalent.
Let’s talk content…
One of the American Top Gear’s segments should be “Routine Maintenance.” You invite some bigwig from a manufacturer onto the show, give them a 3 to 5 year old example of one of their top-selling cars and have them change the oil, oil filter, air filter, a headlamp bulb and a fuse. Award points for speed, product knowledge and most creative use of profanity.
HBO/SHO would be the only way to pull something like this off. If you tried to be objective… scratch that, Clarkson &co. don’t even try for objective, just be yourself.
But Farago seems to be full of the American ‘accentuate the positive’ public speaking style, and THAT will never fly. Why? It’s BORING. Part of the TG team’s brilliance is letting the chips fall where they may, and in so doing demonstrating TG/Clarkson’s Series 10 mantra:
“That’s us, here at Top Gear- Ambitious, but rubbish.”
Not being afraid of taking the piss out of themelves, you have to get into the ‘blokes cocking about’ mode that looks pretty easy, but is I’m sure quite difficult to achieve.
You’ve got a good distinct speaking voice though, that’ll get you far.
Good effort.
I think that the show will be chock-full of stupid stunts, and come up way short on automotive “journalism” and actual reviews. I’d be shocked if Robert got the job (even if he did grow some pig bristles).
Would the American Top Gear feature one of their presenters placing their life on the line to drive a 10,000HP jet car, crashing and coming back to tell the story?
Probably not.
I agree with the comments that I’ve read so far. I don’t watch Top Gear (or try to, since the BBC doesn’t seem to want this show escaping to America) for car information: I watch it for the wit and humor. It’s fun to listen to Jeremy poke fun at practically everyone, including the BBC. Hamster adds the energy to the mix (he’s probably the closest to what we can expect from an American version), and James May provides both a straight man for many of Clarkson’s diatribes as well as the occasional bit of dry humor himself. I just can’t imagine a U.S. version with anything approaching what for me is a perfect blend of personallities. I see failure in Top Gear USA’s future, but then again, wnat do I know? I like Monte Python.
My dream cast for an American Top Gear would include RF and ex-TTAC podcaster Jonny Lieberman.
Robert-
To begin with, let it be known that I stumbled upon your website only today, and it looks to be top notch.
Please don’t take offense from the following: As much as I liked your audition tape, it felt too much to me like you were trying to act like Jeremy Clarkson, but with an American accent. This isn’t a bad thing, I think we all pretend to be Jeremy Clarkson every once in a while; after all, the man is brilliant. I do think that an American version of Top Gear would require a unique and outspoken host /similar/ to Jeremy Clarkson, but he would need to develop his own style and appeal with viewers in order to survive in a different (and let’s be honest, less sophistocated) market.
With that said-
Personally, I’m optimistic about this American Top Gear business. I think that while it’s a possibility that NBC could ruin the show entirely, BBC Worldwide (who is producing it) could do a bang-up job duplicating a British icon in order to avoid defacing a fantastic franchise. They have a vested interest, clearly.
With that said, I think another user had it right when they suggested a type of rotating sponsorship method. If the show was sponsored by multiple car companies in equal shares, then honest reviews could be made as each company has the same financial interest in the show. That is the only bit that worries me though, because I’m sure American (broke) automakers will be quick to pull the plug on financial backing if anything negative is said about their cars.
This is one of those things with endless ‘what-ifs,’ and we’ll never really know until the program is launched in the US.
I know I’m hoping for the best, anyone else?
I liked the tape quite a lot. You would definitely be an asset to such a production. However, I agree with most of the posters that it will be a shallow, hollow version of the original – which is quite often what happens with the US translations of Brit TV – “The Office” notwithstanding.
Funny about the thoughts of you with a beard. I actually envisioned you like Vinny Vedecci, but wearing a Ferrari jacket.