There's finally some good news for Top Gear

Has it turned the corner?

There's finally some good news for Top Gear

Despite reports that the Top Gear team is currently resembling the Labour shadow cabinet - with threats of resignations and unhappiness - there is finally some good new for the new-look show: ratings for this week's episode were up on the previous week.

Overnight figures show that Episode 5 was watched by 2.68m viewers - a 300,000 increase on Episode 4, which attracted just 2.34m - the smallest audience for the show since its Clarkson-led reboot in 2002.

Naturally, people are already trying to explain away the increase as being a result of viewers having tuned in to watch the coverage of the Glastonbury mid-afternoon 'legends' slot, which this year was filled by Jeff Lynne's ELO, and deciding to simply watch the next programme on the same channel.

2.4m tuned in to watch ELO, in contrast to last week's preceding show, a repeat of Dara and Ed’s Great Big Adventure, which brought in only 925,000 viewers. Critics can also point to the fact that this number is still down hugely on the 4.3m who tuned in live for the launch episode.

Nonetheless, Chris Evans and BBC bosses will doubtless be hugely relieved to finally be welcoming some positive news.

However, it may be as good as it gets, as next Sunday's show - the sixth and final in this series - may be moved to an earlier slot if England beat Iceland tonight, lining up a Sunday evening quarter-final against France.

Don't be surprised to see Chris Evans in a pub somewhere tonight cheering on the Iceland boys...

(Image: Rex)

Marc Chacksfield
Content Director

As Content Director of Shortlist, Marc likes nothing more than to compile endless lists of an evening by candlelight. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.