Netflix takes swipe at rival Amazon saying Top Gear trio weren’t worth £160m
Netflix’s product boss has suggested Amazon paid too much to secure Top Gear trio Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May and audiences might not be that fussed on them.
Amazon shelled out £160m for a 36 episode series, a deal the e-commerce giant’s chief executive Jeff Bezos admitted was “very, very, very expensive”.
Netflix – which was also in discussion with Clarkson, May, and Hammond – seems to think its rival paid over the odds for the trio and it might find audiences aren’t that interested.
Chief product officer Neil Hunt told Digital Spy: "We have past episodes of Top Gear, so we have a pretty good gauge of what audiences like. Our buying decisions tend to be somewhat data-driven. We have a lot of data to get the deals we want, so there we go.
"Clearly it wasn't worth the money to make the deal... I think they sold themselves for way more money [than they're worth]."
However, he appeared to reign in his comments with Digital Spy later updating its article with a statement from Hunt, who said: "There is an audience for everything and it is not up to us to judge if Amazon has paid too much or not."
Bezos, meanwhile, is confident viewers in the UK, and globally, are “going to love” Clarkson’s new show although is keeping details under wraps until the January 2016 debut.