| Fifth Gear | |
|---|---|
The Fifth Gear logo (2005 - present) |
|
| Genre | Motoring |
| Directed by | Phil Hawkins Mark McQueen |
| Presented by | Tiff Needell Vicki Butler-Henderson Jason Plato Jonny Smith Ben Collins |
| Opening theme | Prize Fight by John F Calone |
| Composer(s) | David Lowe |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| No. of series | 20 |
| No. of episodes | 185 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Richard Pearson |
| Producer(s) | Jim McMullan |
| Editor(s) | Mike Bloore Mike Brown Martin Dowell James Hay Steve Killick Leigh Nicholls Tony Quinsee-Jover Peter Shannon |
| Location(s) | Ace Cafe (Series 10-13) Millbrook Proving Ground (Series 14-16) Various locations (Series 17-present) |
| Running time | 23 minutes (excluding adverts) |
| Production company(s) | North One |
| Distributor | All3Media |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Channel 5 |
| Picture format | 16:9 |
| Original run | 8 April 2002 – present |
| External links | |
| Website | |
Fifth Gear (formerly 5th Gear) is a motoring television magazine show from the United Kingdom. Originally shown on Channel 5, the show is currently presented by Tiff Needell, Vicki Butler-Henderson, Jason Plato, Jonny Smith and Ben Collins. Fifth Gear's rival show is BBC Two's Top Gear.
Fifth Gear was first broadcast in 2002 as a continuation of the original incarnation of the BBC show Top Gear, which was cancelled in 1999 due to low ratings. Top Gear was relaunched later that year; Channel 5 originally wanted to carry on using the Top Gear name, but the BBC refused. Several of Top Gear's ex-presenters, including Quentin Willson, Tiff Needell, and Vicki Butler-Henderson were hired by Channel 5 to present Fifth Gear.[1][2]
Repeats of Fifth Gear also started being broadcast on UKTV channel, Dave in April 2008 and later on Discovery Turbo.
Contents |
The first seven series consisted of a 23 minute programme, not including approximately 7 minutes of adverts.[3] The eighth series returned in the autumn of 2005 in a longer format of 45 minutes, and the ninth series (which went to a 13-week run) was increased to a one hour airtime slot (approximately 46 minutes excluding adverts). For series 17, the show has reverted to the original format of 23 minutes, which including adverts, takes the show to half an hour.
At the start of series 10, the show introduced between-feature links filmed at the Ace Cafe in London. In previous series, these links were filmed at the production company offices in Birmingham. Originally produced by Chrysalis Television, the Birmingham offices were situated on the top floor of the headquarters of 100.7 Heart FM (also, at that time, a Chrysalis Radio company), near Birmingham's Five Ways area. The team moved out when Chrysalis sold their Television Division to All3Media in September 2003 (the section which currently produces Fifth Gear is now known as North One Television, part of the All3Media group).
In series 14, a location change from the Ace Cafe meant link sequences were filmed instead at the Millbrook Proving Ground, along with some of the vehicle testing features.
The current presenters are Tiff Needell, Vicki Butler-Henderson, Jason Plato, Jonny Smith and Ben Collins.
When Fifth Gear was launched in 2002, the presenters were Tiff Needell, Vicki Butler-Henderson, Tom Ford, Adrian Simpson and Quentin Willson. Willson and Simpson left Fifth Gear a few years later and were replaced by Jason Plato, with the program's producer, Jon Bentley, also becoming a presenter around 2005. Bentley later stopped being a presenter and went back to being the producer. Jonny Smith later joined the show, with Tim Lovejoy for series 10 who was very short lived on the show. In August 2008, Tim Shaw became a presenter on the program for series 14. In 2009, both Shaw and long-time presenter Ford did not return to series 17. In October 2010, Ben Collins, formerly The Stig on BBC's Top Gear, came to Fifth Gear.[4] Collins did not return in the following season (starting April 1, 2011)
Fifth Gear has also been broadcast on the Speed Channel in the USA for a short period in 2004 to early 2007.
Fifth Gear began broadcasting in Australia in November 2009, on Seven Network's free-to-air digital channel 7mate (previously shown on 7Two).
Fifth Gear started Canadian broadcast on Discovery Channel Canada in 2008, began with 2006 series. This version ran in half-hour format.
| Series | Episodes | Originally broadcast | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 9 | 8 April 2002 - 3 June 2002 | |
| 2 | 8 | 7 October 2002 - 25 November 2002 | |
| 3 | 9 | 12 March 2003 - 21 May 2003 | |
| 4 | 10 + 1 Special | 26 September 2003 - 15 December 2003 | |
| 5 | 10 | 29 March 2004 - 31 May 2004 | |
| 6 | 10 | 11 October 2004 - 13 December 2004 | |
| 7 | 10 | 21 March 2005 - 23 May 2005 | |
| 8 | 10 | 10 October 2005 - 19 December 2005 | |
| 9 | 13 | 10 April 2006 - 24 July 2006 | |
| 10 | 13 | 25 September 2006 - 18 December 2006 | |
| 11 | 10 | 30 April 2007 - 2 August 2007 | |
| 12 | 8 | 3 September 2007 - 22 October 2007 | |
| 13 | 10 | 21 January 2008 - 24 March 2008 | |
| 14 | 8 | 11 August 2008 - 29 September 2008 | |
| 15 | 8 | 5 January 2009 - 23 February 2009 | |
| 16 | 8 | 8 June 2009 - 27 July 2009 | |
| 17 | 10 | 3 June 2010 - 12 August 2010 | |
| 18 | 10 + 3 Specials | 8 October 2010 - 10 December 2010, 11 February 2011 - 4 March 2011 | |
| 19 | Best of Fifth Gear Shown on Friday 25 February 2011. | ||
During Series 12, Episode 7,[5] two accidents took place while on set.
Both accidents happened on the same day of recording.
Each year, the programme gives out various awards:
Fifth Gear claims to be 'world renowned' for their 'infamous' shoot-outs, between similarly priced, similarly powerful cars, or, recently, cars versus bikes. These shoot outs take place at the Anglesey Circuit on the Isle of Anglesey close to Aberffraw. During the refurbishment of Anglesey, shoot-outs were switched to Castle Combe Circuit.
On 18 October 2009, the Mail Online reported that the show had been cancelled.[8] Up to then there had been no official announcement or confirmation. Although, Channel 5 executives had been quoted as saying, "Five is proud of Fifth Gear's contribution to the channel but after 16 series, feels it's time to try something new."[9]
On 27 November 2009, Jeremy Clarkson mentioned on The Chris Moyles Show that it was a shame that Fifth Gear had been cancelled.
In late December 2009, however, presenter Jonny Smith suggested via Twitter that the show could return for another series early in 2010.[10] On 8 January 2010, Smith tweeted: "Fifth Gear IS coming back!", and in his next tweet, he said "Wow, such quick responses! Basically, we all know there's room for 2 car TV shows. FG will simply be a reviews based visual car magazine." Tiff Needell also tweeted saying "Home to the news that, after much negotiating Fifth Gear looks like it will after all be returning to your screens sometime in the Spring!" and also hinted the show will have a new format in his next tweet "Glad so many of you are delighted by the Fifth Gear news — and, yes the format will be moving away from the stupid ... but still having fun!".[11]
On 17 January 2010, Vicki Butler-Henderson and Tiff Needell confirmed at the Autosport International Show that Fifth Gear will be returning in Spring 2010. The pair featured a car shootout in Fifth Gear style in the live arena show and said several times to the audience that the show would be back on air in Spring and to ignore the cancellation rumours.[12]
The series started on 3 June 2010. The series ran for 10 episodes and the first one had Lewis Hamilton as a guest. On 1 October 2010, it was announced that Ben Collins (who played the original White Stig on Top Gear) would join the show as 'The Stag', a race car driver wearing a reindeer suit with antlers.[4]
In Summer 2011, 'Fifth Gear' returned for Series 19 which consisted of 20 episodes. It filled the 7:30pm slot on a Friday evening. It was interrupted for a week in early July for sport.
In Series 19, a new segment was introduced, called the Team Test. This is where Tiff, Jason, Jonny and Vicki all do a group test on an important new car, e.g. the New Mk.2 Nissan Micra, the Mk.3 Ford C-Max etc. They all score the car out of 10, and add it together to get the score for the car.