How much is Jeremy Clarkson worth?

He’s priceless. Yes, we know. But how much really can a TV show host make in a year? And especially a TV show host that we so much enjoy watching and listening to. Between being funny and race cars, there is little more to it than most people would think. Naturally these figures won’t be announced in public, but we can surely guess what they are.

Generally being a famous TV person works in the form of good money coming from that job. For example Jay Leno is one of the wealthiest TV stars out there, and we all saw his car collection. But that’s in the states, in Europe the situation is a little bit different we might say. From a reliable source we found out that a person working on BBC as a presenter get as much as 2000 pounds a day. Maybe the situation has since then improven, or maybe due to the crisis got a little bit smaller, but that’s the amount they got paid. Definitely Jeremy knows this, as we found out pretty easy, so maybe he has asked for more, but we will stay at this value to be correct.

Jeremy also writes columns and books for a living. Usually people get about 1-2$ per every book sold, something that is quite common in the publishing world. He has sold many of them, and that pretty much can sum up to a big amount eventually. One other source of his income would be the DVD’s he makes every year, with his „Supercar Showdown“ as an example. Yes, he hosts other TV shows, opens events, gives speeches, write his weekly column for the Sunday Times and a lot more. We know for sure that his opening speeches for diners come at a cost of 900 pounds, which is some nice money for that kind of work.

We for sure know that Jeremy isn’t pressed for cash. You may ask yourself why? Well to the majority that probably don’t know this, Jeremy’s parents had a large stake atcompany which made the „Paddington Bear“. Which is featured in many children’s books, cartoons, tv shows and sold worldwide as a collectible everyone can buy. So we can be certain that he is not pressed for cash, his inheritance will be quite supstancial for him to live his life without cash problems in any aspects of it.

We all know that he test cars, and that he gets numerous vehicles brought to his driveway for Jeremy to test. But we also know that he owned and still owns lot of cars. For example we all remember him buying the Ford GT some years ago. Jeremy wanted to purchase the exclusive sports car the Ford GT after admiring its inspiration, the Ford GT 40 race cars of the 1960s. Jeremy was only able to secure a place on the shortlist for the few cars that would be imported to Britain to official customers, through knowing Ford’s head of PR through a previous job. His subsequent experience with his Ford GT have been well documented by him. After a long wait and an increased expected price, the car had many technical problems. After “the most miserable month’s motoring possible”, he returned it to Ford for a full refund. After a short period, including asking Top Gear fans for advice over the Internet, he bought back his GT. He has called it “the most unreliable car ever made”, due to his never being able to complete a return journey using it. In 2006 Clarkson ordered a Gallardo Spyder and sold the Ford GT to make way for it. In August 2008 it was reported that he had sold the Gallardo. He also announced in October that he had sold his Volvo XC90, but in January 2009, in a review of the car printed in The Times, he reported that “I’ve just bought my third Volvo XC90 in a row and the simple fact is this: it takes six children to school in the morning.”

There is some talk that each of the presenters (Clarkson, Hammond and May) get 25 000 pounds per episode. That’s some things that are talked about, but we can understand and tell you that’s probably a reliable figure. And everyone of them does some other tv programme, for example Hammond’s work as the presenter of „Braniac“ at BBC is one of that kind of work.

There is some talk that he makes around 500 000 pounds yearly. Let me explain, in numbers … lets assume, he gets 5000 pounds for the magazine, 3000 pounds for the newspaper monthly, which adds up to about a 100 000 pounds per year. Then there are the Top Gear episodes, each worth 25 000 pounds, which then adds up to 300 000 pounds. Other various stuff will make him another 100 000 pounds if are to be objective about this.

Not bad for a job where you drive every boys dream car everyday?

* Photos are property of Top Gear and BBC

Related posts:

1. Column: What’s next?

2. Top Gear: Win a Top Gear Track Day with The Stig in the UK! (for the Australians)

3. Column: Happy Easter!