Top Gear: BBC forced to scrap Jeremy Clarkson satnav deal

[Larry-G]

The BBC has been forced to pull out of a deal to produce a Top Gear satnav featuring the voice of Jeremy Clarkson after senior executives ruled that the device would breach the corporation’s conflict of interest regulations.



BBC Worldwide, the corporation’s commercial arm, said last month that it was in talks with TomTom, Europe’s largest satnav maker, to market a device that would allow drivers the chance to take directions from Clarkson.

But Worldwide, which markets the BBC’s programmes and brands around the world, has been forced to ditch the agreement after being told by the corporation’s editorial policy advisers that Clarkson’s role on Top Gear meant that he was not allowed to endorse car-related products.

By the time the problem was raised TomTom had already produced 54,000 satnavs, which were being delivered to shops. The corporation has now struck a deal allowing TomTom to sell the products, at £189 each, but will donate its share of the proceeds to Children In Need. It has also banned TomTom from making any more.

TomTom is understood to have approached Worldwide, which had revenues of £1.2  billion last year, earlier in the summer, with the satnav proposal.

A senior BBC executive said there had been a “monumental cock-up” by the corporation’s commercial arm, which had failed to check with the editorial policy team before allowing the satnav company to begin manufacturing the devices.

Under the conflict of interest section of the BBC’s editorial guidelines, presenters “must take particular care not to endorse any product or service which could be covered in the programmes on which they work”.

So great was the rush to get the product ready for the Christmas market that Worldwide allowed TomTom to begin delivering it to stores before the agreement had been finalised.

A spokesman for BBC Worldwide said: “In order to avoid any perception of a conflict of interest in the minds of viewers, BBC Worldwide and TomTom have agreed that all monies that would have been due to BBC Worldwide will be paid to BBC Children in Need together with an additional charitable donation by TomTom.’’

Clarkson, who played no part in setting up the deal, will not receive any money from the sale of the 54,000 devices.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/top-gear/8823382/Top-Gear-BBC-forced-to-scrap-Jeremy-Clarkson-satnav-deal.html