Top Gear has won the title of "the most popular program in the world" several times»: according to their own calculations, the maximum audience of the show was 350 million people (and this is without piracy). The automotive theme was relevant for viewers from dozens of countries, and the specific language chosen by the three presenters was clear from New York to Magadan.
It will be all the more surprising to learn that the show is very old, that it was considered one of the most conservative and that it was almost closed due to low ratings in the early noughties.So, the original show was launched as early as 1977. By this time, the car in Europe had already become an affordable thing, so the fate of becoming a niche product of the program, which started on the BBC (the largest British TV channel), was not threatened.
At the very beginning, the show was quite progressive. The life of car owners in general was not so often covered by TV channels of that time, and one of the first presenters was Angela Rippon, who acted as an autolady and talked about the world of girls behind the wheel.
We can say that the program was very applied. Basically, the presenters talked about the available models of cars, their characteristics, road safety and all that. The show gave tips on operation, could show interviews with road officials or designers, to a lesser extent mentioned motorsport. In general, it was a show about motorists for motorists.
Top Gear has won the title of "the most popular program in the world" several times»: according to their own calculations, the maximum audience of the show was 350 million people (and this is without piracy). The automotive theme was relevant for viewers from dozens of countries, and the specific language chosen by the three presenters was clear from New York to Magadan.
It will be all the more surprising to learn that the show is very old, that it was considered one of the most conservative and that it was almost closed due to low ratings in the early noughties.So, the original show was launched as early as 1977. By this time, the car in Europe had already become an affordable thing, so the fate of becoming a niche product of the program, which started on the BBC (the largest British TV channel), was not threatened.
At the very beginning, the show was quite progressive. The life of car owners in general was not so often covered by TV channels of that time, and one of the first presenters was Angela Rippon, who acted as an autolady and talked about the world of girls behind the wheel.
We can say that the program was very applied. Basically, the presenters talked about the available models of cars, their characteristics, road safety and all that. The show gave tips on operation, could show interviews with road officials or designers, to a lesser extent mentioned motorsport. In general, it was a show about motorists for motorists.