Written on
the eve of the launch of Top Gear Mk2 with Chris Evans and Matt le Blanc
I can categorically state that Top Gear Mark 2 will not be
long lived – even before it has aired. It has little to do with the stars the
BBC have picked, but everything to do with chemistry. You cannot create chemistry
on or off screen. The Top Gear of the noughties was successful not because Andy
Wilman and Jeremy Clarkson (lifelong friends since their schooldays at Repton)
sat down and decided who to invite onto the show with them, it was because the
three very different personalities of Clarkson, Hammond and May accepted their
roles on the show, and loved working with one another.
On-Air Chemistry is no different to that found in the best
relationships. When I presented the breakfast show on the newly launched Radio
5 several million years ago, I was teamed with a co-presenter who was
significantly older than me. I had little in common with her interests or
outlook on life. While our voices worked well on air, we were not compatible.
We struggled on for 18 months but it was never easy – and the lack of empathy
between us was palpable.
The BBC has never really understood talent and how to manage
it. Having run my own agency for 20 years, I know the pleasures and the
pitfalls of catering for very talented individuals. They don’t work the same as
everyone else. Jonathan Ross and Clarkson himself are two examples of
mismanagement. When you have such maverick personalities at work, they need to
be understood and guided carefully. Ross’s demise at the BBC was down to the
fact that no one challenged his ideas or thought he needed producing carefully.
As a big enough personality he knew how to do it. The resulting fallout from
Jonathan Ross’s departure has changed the BBC beyond all recognition. The
requirement for compliance costs production companies who supply the BBC with
programmes huge amounts and the fear within the corporation of getting things
wrong or not being accountable has meant that even the smallest competitions on
air are just not worth arranging. It is simpler to do without. My first
breakfast show for the BBC in Oxford gave away a bar of breakfast soap every
morning. No chance of doing that these days.
There is, of course, no accounting for how people will react
in given situations, and there is nothing that I can say to defend Clarkson
punching another member of the team for any reason, let alone something as
trivial as the lack of a hot meal. However had they recognised that they
weren’t dealing with just another member of the team, they might have realised
that what was provided for everyone else might not do for this maverick and
genius. There is a reason that Clarkson’s talents are in demand. There is a
reason that he made the BBC’s Worldwide division millions of pounds every year
and raked in a tidy sum from his columns for The Times and The Sun, which also
proved highly profitable when reproduced in book form. The reason is that he’s
unique. He’s just not like any other motoring journalist. His turn of phrase,
his idioms and his similes amuse, entertain and inform in equal quantities. But
the fact that he doesn’t write like anyone else should tell you everything you
need to know about why he doesn’t work like anyone else.
Understanding how to manage talent is a specialised
industry. There’s a reason that Talent Management and Agencies exist still in
this day and age. It’s not hard to contact the rich and famous, or even
infamous these days with a little research on the Net. The BBC would do well to
invest some time and energy in understanding those that thrive on the very
publicity that it creates for them in the first place. The possibility of
losing another Clarkson or Ross is all too likely until the lessons are genuinely
learned, and no amount of internal legislation or document box ticking will
prevent it until they do so.
