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I have often seen figures claiming that Top Gear’s estimated worldwide audience is 350 million (e.g here). I don't doubt that it's a popular show, but that seems a little high to me.

It reminds me of a common misconceptions:

  • the Super Bowl is watched by a billion people worldwide, when that is only the potential audience and the real figure is closer to 100 million, almost all of whom live in North America.
  • how the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton was supposedly going to draw 2 billion viewers, but it was probably more like 300 million.

Another factor which makes me skeptical is that Top Gear only draws about 5 million viewers in the UK on a good day, or less than 10% of the country's population.

For Top Gear to draw 350 million viewers worldwide, that would mean it is drawing 5% of the entire world's population - a remarkably small drop-off, considering how many people in the world don't even own a television, let alone be interested in a show in a foreign language with many specifically British cultural references.

I have to stress the fact, that the real version of the claim is:

The British automotive show is seen by 350 million viewers in 170 countries every week.

This is what I'm skeptical about. (Not that, in overall 350 million people have seen the show.)

unor
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Nichle
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    Note that the person who put the claim together might be performing all kinds of dodges such as attempting to estimate the number of people who've seen at least one episode and folding the various international spin-offs into the numbers. – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Oct 17 '15 at 23:52
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    It's not necessarily in a foreign language; might be dubbed for some markets. Anyway there are a *lot* of people in the world with English as a second/additional language. – A E Oct 18 '15 at 16:55
  • @Nichle If you have specific question I can address, please let me know. Thanks! BBC was not willing to answer general methodology questions. If I have more specific questions, they might answer. – Barry Harrison Aug 01 '19 at 01:46
  • @dmckee You are right about the everybody who's "seen at least one episode" part. The international spin-offs are not represented in the numbers (according to the BBC). – Barry Harrison Aug 01 '19 at 01:47
  • @AE I have no doubt this is the case. – Barry Harrison Aug 01 '19 at 01:47

1 Answers1

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Note: To write this answer, I contacted the BBC and BBC Studios by email. I am willing to forward the relevant emails. (Please ping me in chat.) To the best of my knowledge, the below information has not been published by the BBC. I did not contact CBS (the originator of the claim).

The BBC (or more specifically, BBC Studios1) clarified that 350 million viewers in 170 countries do not watch Top Gear every week.

Rather, the figure of 350 million viewers reflects the cumulative reach of the UK version of Top Gear over time. This means that anybody who has watched Top Gear in their lifetime is included in this estimate. Other Top Gear formats (e.g. international versions such as Top Gear Australia) are not included in the estimate. I received further clarification that people who watched Top Gear multiple times are only counted once.

The figure of 170 countries is because over Top Gear's lifetime, it has been sold to over 170 countries around the world.

BBC Studios stands by the statement that Top Gear has had an estimated worldwide audience of 350 million viewers.

Additionally, BBC Studios specifically stated that Top Gear is composed of multiple series of multiple episodes over a number of years. This increases the cumulative viewership. On the other hand, each annual Super Bowl and the Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton are one-off events that attract fewer overall viewers over time.

To answer the question:

Does Top Gear have 350 million viewers in 170 countries every week?

No, Top Gear does not have 350 million viewers weekly. The BBC confirmed this.

1BBC Studios is the commercial arm of the BBC. They are responsible for commercial aspects of BBC programs and broadcasts, including sales of programs and broadcasts to international territories.

Barry Harrison
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  • If anybody has specific questions, let me know and I can ask the BBC. – Barry Harrison Aug 01 '19 at 01:50
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    Where was this clarification by BBC Studios released/published? – jwodder Aug 01 '19 at 02:56
  • @jwodder I contacted BBC Studios and the BBC in general by email. I am willing to forward you the relevant emails where this information was written to me. – Barry Harrison Aug 01 '19 at 05:47
  • @jwodder I forgot to include that in the answer! I have now edited this in. – Barry Harrison Aug 01 '19 at 05:49
  • @jwodder In the interest of full disclosure, [the sender of forwarded emails cannot always be easily verified](https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/213594/is-there-a-way-to-check-the-authenticity-of-a-forwarded-email) (also see the comment thread [here](https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/44360/did-marriott-international-issue-a-statement-stating-that-they-would-decline-any/44386#44386) that started the question). – Barry Harrison Aug 01 '19 at 05:53
  • @jwodder Maybe I didn't actually answer your question. The BBC did NOT publish this information. The BBC and BBC Studios have a "Contact Us" page that I used to send the emails. – Barry Harrison Aug 01 '19 at 05:55
  • Now that I think about it some more, I might as well contact CBS and see what they say for completeness. I doubt this will change the answer as the BBC should know more about their own program than CBS. – Barry Harrison Aug 01 '19 at 06:01
  • I would be sceptical of the accuracy of how this figure is produced. UK TV data is a sample based system using a Panel (see BARB) the panel regularly churns so one person could not be tracked over a long time.As one person is weighted to represent the UK population this persons representation on the panel would change over years and so they could be double counted in cumulative reach over the history of Top Gear. I have other reservations based on my experience of working with TV data for over a decade. My best "guess" is that its a wild estimate they have cobbled together without much thought – Bob Aug 02 '19 at 07:59
  • My suspicions are they have run a cumulative reach query for it in the UK over the years of available data, and then looked at roughly how many people watched it in each of the other countries and factored that into a rough guess. I would want to see the data they used to come up with this figure. My conclusion is, the best guess is that "a lot of people have watched Top Gear", I personally would not want to create this figure myself as i couldn't validate the accuracy with the knowledge i have of how the UK and US TV measurements work – Bob Aug 02 '19 at 08:03
  • @Bob Interesting! I will ask about this. – Barry Harrison Aug 02 '19 at 12:26