The BBC’s new-look Top Gear starring Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc suffered more ratings woe when its launch on US television lost a third of its audience.



BBC America’s show drew 388,000 viewers when it aired on 30 May, compared with 530,000 viewers for the opening episode of the last series, when it was fronted by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May.

The figures, revealed on Tuesday, come a day after the second episode of the new series in the UK saw its overnight audience fall by a third to below 3 million.

BBC America, which released the ratings, said Top Gear’s opening show faced tough competition from two high-profile sports events – the finals of the NBA Western Conference and ice hockey’s Stanley Cup – as well as the drama mini-series Roots.



A spokeswoman said: “Premiere night was an incredibly competitive evening in the US with programmes that attracted a heavily male-skewing audience, which overlaps greatly with the BBC America audience.”

Evans has said critics who put too much emphasis on the overnight ratings were out of touch because of the number of people who now watch on catch-up TV.

But other ratings which included recorded viewings three days after Top Gear was shown in the US also fell. Some 547, 000 viewers were recorded for the season premiere, compared with 792,000 viewers for the last series.

The second episode of Top Gear, broadcast on BBC2 in the UK on Sunday, suffered the show’s lowest overnight audience for at least a decade with 2.8 million viewers.

But there was encouragement for Evans and his BBC bosses after the consolidated audience for the first outing – which includes people who recorded it and watched it in the subsequent seven days – boosted the opening show’s audience by nearly 50%, to 6.4 million.



Evans accused his critics on Monday of “living in the past” and had not taken into account catch-up viewing and the way the show was “repositioning the way” people watch TV.

Overnight television viewing figures for Top Gear have never been less relevant. Obviously some newspapers prefer to live in the past. — Chris Evans (@achrisevans) June 6, 2016

The second episode slump will still have warning lights flashing at the BBC, which relies on Top Gear to generate an estimated £50m a year in global revenue for its commercial arm, BBC Worldwide.

Critics have been lukewarm and occasionally outright hostile to the show, which Evans took over following Jeremy Clarkson’s axing last year after a “fracas” with a producer.

Evans, the Radio 2 breakfast presenter who is also the creative force behind the new Top Gear, hosts the show alongside former Friends star Matt LeBlanc as part of a six-strong presenter line-up including German racing driver Sabine Schmitz and ex-Formula 1 team owner, Eddie Jordan.

Alan Tyler, the BBC’s acting controller of entertainment commissioning, said the consolidated audience for the first episode of the new series was the programme’s highest consolidated audience since 2010.

He said he was “delighted” with the performance of the show, which has had a further 1.8 million requests to watch it on the BBC’s iPlayer, taking its total audience to more than 8 million.

Last Sunday’s overnight audience was around half the number who used to watch Top Gear on a Sunday night when it was still presented by Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May last year.



Catch-up and on-demand viewing is now a far more significant proportion of TV ratings than a decade or even a few years ago, but the overnight audience remains a significant indicator of a show’s popularity.

The BBC will also be looking to the show’s popularity around the world, airing in more than 80 countries within 72 hours of its UK transmission.

Evans had previously said he would be “disappointed” if the show attracted fewer than 5 million viewers on BBC2.

Speaking at the programme’s launch last month, Evans said press stories, which alleged he did not get along with co-presenter Matt LeBlanc, and his behaviour was “out of control”, were “nonsense”.



“None of it was true, but there’s no point saying that, there’s just no point,” he said. “In many ways my job for this year has been not only to make this show but to take all the shit, which was going to happen. I knew I was going to get the shit kicked out of me.”