Im suggesting that anyone who see's this stunt in bad taste needs a feckin life......................
If that's what I wanted to say,I would have said it. As I didn't say it,then it's not what I wanted to say. A very large percentage of BBC talent is paid far more than they are worth. An entertainers value should be decided by the audience,not by management deciding what the audience should pay,when they have no choice in who the entertainer is. In years gone by,an act would do their bit and then pass around the hat:if they were no good,they went hungry. Playing someone else's music or reading an autocue should not lead to a lavish lifestyle. Nor should having big breasts,(cardboard Carol Kirkwood).
right I'll have my tupence worth. The memorial was vandalised in 2014, and got less press coverage than the BBC stunt. agree it was around a sensitive national war monument, but from what I could see, what was on the news was just away from the monument, and the proper film crew were filming away from the monument. if anyone has seen Ken Blocks youtube Gymkhana, he does exactly what was shown on the news. so why was he and the BBC given permission????
The BBC pay below market values for their on screen performers, be they entertainers, news readers or presenters. Many of these people go to rival broadcasters for higher salaries so the question of "worth" is entirely subjective. You don't think they are worth the money, the broadcast industry does.
I think The last 3 too Well you answered your own statement? It's in bad taste because the Cenotaph is a designated monument to show appreciation to those who gave their "feckin life"
The BBC gives an awful lot of acts their break,sets the rates,makes them famous,and in order to get hold of the now-household-names other broadcasters have to better the rates. It's cheaper for Sky/ITV etc to hire the already famous than it is to grow their own talent,taking acts on this way are the kind of hard-headed business decisions that are anathema to BBC management. The only reason the BBC can pay the rates they do is because they have a captive audience funding them:it's also why BBC programmes are so expensive to make,why their organisation is so inefficient,and why the same plummy voices are heard throughout the day on Radio 4.No one with any commercial nous can afford to do that. I've had some experience of working with the Beeb and commercial television.Sky is a lean,efficient machine,the BBC is an old-fashioned Union dominated shambles. Not always...but pretty often.
Top gear started out all good but gradually became boring very contrived viewing that ran out of ideas and became all about forced humour from the 3 past their sell by date presenters - I have no reason to think the new format and presenters will offer anything new,groundbreaking or different? What really made me always cringe were the "hero worshippers" standing in the audience trying to look street with anything close to a decent looking bird placed strategically at the front! Pathetic TV
Ken BlockLike Page Yesterday at 14:20 · Explanation FOR THE FANS: the British tabloid media decided to try to make Top Gear, host Matt LeBlanc and myself look bad this week by exaggerating a story about us doing some slides and donuts near a war memorial in London. That is unfortunate and I want my fans to know that I have complete and total respect for veterans (my Dad was a veteran) and would never do anything to deliberately disrespect them in any way whatsoever - so I was quite disappointed that some of the media was (and still is!) misinforming the public about what we were doing. For those of you that don’t know what happened: we did our slides/donuts down the street (closest drift tire mark was 180 feet (60 meters) away) from a war monument (the Cenotaph) in central London. The press ran long-lens photos that compress the distance and makes it look like we are much closer - and then they said that we “disrespected” the memorial. I drove past the memorial several times (it’s in the middle of a two lane road, London traffic goes past it 24 hours a day, every day of the year), but I did not do anything on or around it. We were respectful, and the production crew instructed me to be the appropriate distance away - which I adhered to. This whole tabloid negativity came as a complete surprise to me as BBC are the ones who invited me over, worked for months applying for all of the proper permits to do the driving/filming, got it all approved by the proper councils of government as well, and directed my actions. We did nothing wrong, yet the British tabloids have made something out of nothing. Unfortunately, sensationalized headlines garner attention in this day and age. I was in London to work with Top Gear to make awesome automotive television programming and promote the country and city - and we continued to do that and make an awesome piece, despite the paparazzi and false reporting. Anyway… the entire shoot went amazing, Matt LeBlanc and I had a great time making an amazing/funny piece and it will be broadcast in a few months. And, it will not feature the war memorial because it never was intended to be featured in the first place! well said Ken
