Jeremy Clarkson being 'dropped' by Amazon has 'nothing to do with Meghan Markle' comments
It seems as though Jeremy Clarkson isn't going to be continuing his work with Amazon Prime once his contracts and time on the shows already commissioned by the streaming service come to an end.
The work already in the pipeline won't be axed, so Clarkson-related content will still be released by Amazon for the next couple of years, but it looks like there won't be fresh announcements on new shows, seasons or specials.
Amazon have clarified that the second season of Clarkson's Farm will still release next month as expected, and an already commissioned third season will follow.
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There's also more of The Grand Tour to come, though that too will not be getting fresh content commissioned in the future.
Many would assume this is happening because of the recent column Clarkson wrote in The Sun about Meghan Markle where he said he hated her 'on a cellular level'.
He then went on to say he dreamt of the day she was 'made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain' while people shouted 'shame' at her like that scene from Game of Thrones.
Clarkson faced huge backlash for these comments and ended up apologising, though it doesn't appear to have cost him his Amazon work or his job presenting Who Wants To Be a Millionaire for ITV.
According to the Daily Telegraph, while Amazon were 'incandescent' over Clarkson's column about Meghan Markle, the real reason they aren't keeping him on is because his shows are so expensive to make.
They cited a source at Amazon who claimed it was 'nonsense' that the streaming platform was ditching The Grand Tour and Clarkson's Farm host over his recent column.
Instead, it's because he's a very expensive hire and his shows just aren't drawing in the sorts of audiences Amazon wants to see from Prime subscribers.
Three quarters of Amazon Prime viewers are in the US where Clarkson is not a big enough star to draw in large audiences.
Demand for Clarkson's Farm is apparently 30 percent below the Amazon Prime average in the US, which does beg the question why you'd pay big money to someone who underperforms in your biggest market.
The show is popular in the UK, but Brits are only a small portion of the pie that is Amazon Prime's audience and if it isn't performing well in the US then it's going to struggle to justify a continued existence.
Then there's the cost involved with making The Grand Tour as filming all over the world isn't cheap and isn't actually producing that much content for the significant budget.
The Telegraph spoke with audience measurement company Parrot Analytics, who called The Grand Tour's model of one-off shows with plenty of time between instalments 'the wrong sort of show' for streaming.
LADbible have contacted Amazon for comment.
Topics: Jeremy Clarkson, Amazon Prime, Amazon, TV and Film
Joe Harker