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Hammond, May And Clarkson Were Handed Nearly £36m To Make ‘Grand Tour’

Hammond, May And Clarkson Were Handed Nearly £36m To Make ‘Grand Tour’

The show has also turned a fairly decent profit.

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie

It was a big decision from the BBC to drop Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond from the most watched factual TV show in history, Top Gear. The trio then decided to embark on a very similar show called The Grand Tour, which reportedly cost Amazon Prime a staggering $250 million (£190 million) to license.

But considering that the new show was going to follow a similar format to Top Gear, it was going to need a sizeable budget.

Newly released figures show that May, Hammond and Clarkson were given £35.8 million to make the first season work. Judging from review sites, it appeared to work well with audiences, with IMBD giving it 8.9/10 and it scoring 83 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

Grand Tour
Grand Tour

Shot from 'The Grand Tour' season two. Credit: Twitter

After running for 13 episodes last year, and pulling in the highest amount of viewing and subscriber sing-ups for Amazon, the show also came away with a profit. The trio set up the company W Chump & Sons, and according to figures released from the company, it made £8.39 million in pre-tax profits, which eventually came down to £6.7 million.

In a statement, featured on The Guardian says: "The directors are keen to continue focusing on producing quality programming whilst ensuring that the company's overheads are kept stable. The directors are satisfied with the results for the year end and will continue to pursue business opportunities as they arise in the future."

Analysing the figures, shows that around £2 million was spent on each episode and its 28 staff were collectively handed £3.3 million.

While the presenters were reportedly collectively given £3.75 million for their services.

They'll all be hoping for similar or better numbers when the second season debuts. The team released a sneak peak of what's to be expected.

The second instalment of the show will presumably draw more viewers thanks to Hammond, who has a knack for endangering his life in serious crashes.

Last month he was involved in a horrific crash in Switzerland while filming, and by his own admission "binning it".

Since then he's showed off his heavily braced "swiss-army" leg, his modded wheelchair, along with x-rays and pictures of his wounds.

James May revealed earlier this month on The One Show that The Grand Tour will be available to stream in October, so at least we've not got too long to wait.

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: richard hammond, james may, The Grand Tour, Jeremy Clarkson, Top Gear