Advanced Television

Netflix to air Top Gear, rolls out HDR

April 13, 2016

Netflix has confirmed that it will stream Top Gear internationally, putting it in direct competition with Jeremy Clarkson’s new motoring show on rival Amazon.

Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer, said that the revamped BBC2 motoring show, now to be fronted by Chris Evans, will be made available on the streaming service as it falls under the existing deal it has with the BBC.

“Theoretically it should follow the deal of the old format where Top Gear is still under the terms of the old deal,” said Sarandos.  “So in many parts of the world we already have it picked up and we’ll continue to talk to them about doing it as well. The show is very popular on Netflix as you can imagine. There’s a change in format but people definitely prefer the British Top Gear over the local Top Gear in almost every country in the world.”

Sarandos said Netflix, which has more than 75 million subscribers globally, is also “continuing talks” to make Top Gear available in as many of its international territories as possible.

Meanwhile, Netflix has commenced its rollout of high dynamic range (HDR) content on its streaming service. Viewers will need a new type of TV and a premium Netflix subscription to view the content.

“We just started streaming in HDR, with Marco Polo season one now available,” said a Netflix spokesman. “We will continue to expand the offering.”

It was revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) tech show at the start of the year that the TV series Daredevil had also been mastered in the format.

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