Top Gear

Top Gear and similar may refer to the following:

Television productions

Video games

Gear

A gear or cogwheel is a rotating machine part having cut teeth, or cogs, which mesh with another toothed part to transmit torque, in most cases with teeth on the one gear being of identical shape, and often also with that shape on the other gear. Two or more gears working in a sequence (train) are called a gear train or, in many cases, a transmission; such gear arrangements can produce a mechanical advantage through a gear ratio and thus may be considered a simple machine. Geared devices can change the speed, torque, and direction of a power source. The most common situation is for a gear to mesh with another gear; however, a gear can also mesh with a linear toothed part, called a rack, thereby producing translation instead of rotation.

The gears in a transmission are analogous to the wheels in a crossed belt pulley system. An advantage of gears is that the teeth of a gear prevent slippage.

When two gears mesh, and one gear is bigger than the other (even though the size of the teeth must match), a mechanical advantage is produced, with the rotational speeds and the torques of the two gears differing in an inverse relationship.

YouTube

YouTube is a video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States. The service was created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005. In November 2006, it was bought by Google for US$1.65 billion. YouTube now operates as one of Google's subsidiaries. The site allows users to upload, view, rate, share and comment on videos, and it makes use of WebM, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, and Adobe Flash Video technology to display a wide variety of user-generated and corporate media video. Available content includes video clips, TV clips, music videos, movie trailers and other content such as video blogging, short original videos, and educational videos.

Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, but media corporations including CBS, the BBC, Vevo, Hulu, and other organizations offer some of their material via YouTube, as part of the YouTube partnership program. Unregistered users can watch videos, and registered users can upload videos to their channels. Videos considered to contain potentially offensive content are available only to registered users affirming themselves to be at least 18 years old.

BBC Worldwide

BBC Worldwide Ltd. is the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in 1995. The company monetizes BBC brands, sells BBC and other British programming for broadcast abroad with the aim of supplementing the income received by the BBC through the licence fee.

In 2013/14, BBC Worldwide generated headline profits of £157.4m and headline sales of £1,042.3m and returned £173.8m to the BBC.

In 2012/13 it made a profit of £156.3m on a turnover of £1,115.8m. The company had made a profit of £104m on a turnover of £1,085m in the previous financial year.

BBC Worldwide's profit rate was 11.2% in 2011/2012, up slightly from 9.6% the previous year, down from a peak of 21.5% in 2002/2003, contrasting with 7.8% in 2003/2004.

History

Origins

In addition to broadcasting, the BBC has for much of its life also produced additional materials for sale, the profits of which would be returned to the corporation to aid in the financing of these services. The highest profile of these early products was the listings magazine Radio Times, however the net revenue gained from this in 1928 (£93,686, 10s, 1d) only equated to 10% of total BBC income.

James May

James Daniel May (born 16 January 1963) is a British television presenter and journalist. He is widely known for his years as a co-presenter of the motoring programme Top Gear alongside Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond from 2003 to 2015. As of 2016 he was a director of the production company W. Chump & Sons and scheduled to be presenting an Untitled Amazon motoring show for Amazon Video as an exclusive for Amazon Prime customers, alongside his former Top Gear co-hosts.

May has presented other programmes on themes including science and technology, toys, wine culture, and the plight of manliness in modern times. He wrote a weekly column for The Daily Telegraph's motoring section from 2003 to 2011.

Early life

James May was born in Bristol, one of four children; he has two sisters and a brother. May attended Caerleon Endowed Junior School in Newport. He spent his teenage years in South Yorkshire where he attended Oakwood Comprehensive School in Rotherham and was a choirboy at Whiston Parish Church. He was also at school with Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes star Dean Andrews.