TopGear will also have a show in China

TopGear still dominates the world of car television and is expanding into those countries where the BBC sees it as highly profitable to have a TopGear. First it was the US, then Australia, and now China will have its own TopGear, not counting Russia, whose local project was cancelled shortly after production began.

It is said that the Chinese state broadcaster CCTV will be in charge of airing the Chinese TopGear, and preparations for the entire production are already underway. The selection process for the show’s future presenters has begun, but it is not known when the first episode will air.

If TopGear is, today, the most-watched car show in the world, the Chinese edition will become even more widely watched than the original BBC version, given the size of China’s population and the growing interest in cars among an ever-larger segment of people buying their first vehicle.

It has not been announced whether the new show’s style will be the same as the original’s, or whether its presenters will make disparaging comments about Japanese or Korean cars. Or worse still, about other countries. Let us hope they stick strictly to talking about cars (as Clarkson, May and Hammond did when the show began) rather than indulging in dreadful advertising-style humour.