Clarkson’s Farm producers ‘worried about paying the mortgage’

Jeremy Clarkson has said that producers and crew members behind Clarkson’s Farm are concerned about how they will pay their mortgages as television workers struggle to find employment.

Speaking at the Royal Television Society London Convention 2026, Clarkson said the sixth season of Clarkson’s Farm had wrapped the previous day. He said the production employed between 35 and 40 people who were now at home and worried about their finances.

“We’ve wrapped season six yesterday of Clarkson’s Farm,” Clarkson said. “We need to get bigger, better, fewer, all the rest of it.

“So there’s 35, 40, people on that crew who are now sitting at home thinking, ‘how are we going to pay our mortgage?’”

Clarkson added that many experienced television producers were unable to find work, describing them as “really, really clever people, decent, sensible, hard-working people” he had worked with over the years.

His comments came as he discussed the pressures facing television in a fragmented media environment, where broadcasters compete with social media content creators and other forms of online entertainment.

Clarkson said television programmes would have to become “bigger” if they were to survive. Referring to comments by Channel 4 chief executive Priya Dogra that she had no intention of merging the station with the BBC, he said he believed television broadcasters might ultimately need to combine to ensure their survival.

“I actually think that television in this country can at least survive and should do this, the whole lot of us; BBC, ITV, Sky, Channel Four, Channel Five,” he said.

Clarkson also argued that television needed more “event television” and questioned how conventional gardening and cooking programmes could compete with content made for social media.

“If you actually do gardening shows, I don’t know how they’re going to survive, especially without Monty Don,” he said. “Anyone can do a gardening thing on social media or cookery.”

He suggested that television shows might need to offer something unusually ambitious to stand out, saying it would be difficult to make a programme work unless it involved something as extraordinary as cooking on the Moon.

Clarkson said the popularity of Clarkson’s Farm on Prime Video was partly linked to what he described as its authenticity. He contrasted the programme with his previous work on Top Gear and The Grand Tour, where the major set pieces were planned.

He said audiences had developed an intense dislike of anything they suspected was scripted or faked. Clarkson stressed that it would be unfair to describe Top Gear and The Grand Tour as fake, but acknowledged that their large-scale sequences were planned in advance.

“With Clarkson’s Farm, you have absolutely no idea what you’re going to do that day,” he said. “It’s a totally different programme.

“You just see me going, ‘why is that sheep dead?’ It’s a much more human place to be and much more in tune with the times.”

Clarkson’s remarks linked the financial difficulties facing television workers with wider changes in how programmes are made, distributed and consumed. In his view, broadcasters must create larger, more distinctive programmes while also responding to audiences’ demand for content that feels less manufactured.