Top Gear’s US ratings fall for episode two

 Rory Reid, Chris Evans, The Stig, Matt LeBlanc, Sabine Schmitz, Chris Harris. Image: BBC World Wide
Rory Reid, Chris Evans, The Stig, Matt LeBlanc, Sabine Schmitz, Chris Harris. Image: BBC World Wide
Top Gear’s US ratings have fallen by almost 5% in a week according to US entertainment news site HeatStreet.

The site quotes BBC America as confirming that Chris Evans’ second episode in charge of the series drew an audience of 369,000, down from 388,000 for his debut episode.

Both figures are significantly down on the numbers who watched Jeremy Clarkson’s era of the series.

News of the falling US audience numbers follows a third week of disappointing viewing figures in the UK where the series attracted 4.3 million live viewers for its opening episode, a number which grew to 6.42m when those who recorded the show for later viewing are taken into account.

Viewing figures for the second episode 2.8 million, or 4.06m including recordings, while the live audience for the third episode was just 2.4 million.

The official consolidated number for the episode will be published by BARB next week.

The BBC and Evans have repeatedly insisted that the actual number of viewings is far higher thanks to those watching via the iPlayer.

Evans has also claimed that overnight numbers are less “relevant” because the catch-up service exists.

However even using the BBC and presenter’s preferred measure, episode two’s combined BARB and iPlayer viewing figures of 6.2m was down significantly on the 9 million claimed for episode one.

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