Jeremy Clarkson: "If I ran the BBC, it would be better"
The Grand Tour presenter describes the corporation as "up itself" and says he’d "be sad if it got knackered by a few unwise Corbynites"
Jeremy Clarkson has declared that if he ran the BBC, “it would be better”.
The Grand Tour and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? presenter has slammed the broadcaster as “up itself” and accused it of only catering for a very narrow demographic.
“If I ran the BBC, it would be better. I’d make programmes for everybody, not just seven people in Islington,” Clarkson said in the latest issue of Radio Times.
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The presenter was responding to a question about whether terrestrial TV was falling behind online streaming services such as Amazon.
Clarkson is set to release the third series of his Prime Video show The Grand Tour on 18th January, but says that the "nonsense need to be politically correct" is holding his previous employer the BBC back.
“It’s become so up itself, suffocating the life out of everything with its nonsense need to be politically correct," he said. "If they’d let everyone relax, and made a show that’s entertaining or interesting or informative or any of the things that the BBC is supposed to be, then we’d be having a different debate about the future of television.”
That said, Clarkson added that he still has fond memories of his time at the corporation, before he was dropped from the BBC after physically and verbally abusing a Top Gear producer.
“I had a very happy time at the BBC,” he said. “And I care very much about it. I’d be sad if it got knackered by a few unwise Corbynites."
Read the full interview in the Radio Times magazine, on sale from Tuesday 8th January 2019
The Grand Tour returns to Amazon Prime Video for series three on 18th January.
