Best Equipment to be rested for ‘foreseeable long run’, BBC says | Ents & Arts Information

The BBC will “relaxation” hit motoring display Best Equipment “for the foreseeable long run”, following a crash that left host Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff severely injured.

Manufacturing of the display has been halted since Flintoff, 45, was once taken to health facility in December 2022.

In a observation, the BBC stated: “Given the outstanding instances, the BBC has made up our minds to relaxation the United Kingdom display for the foreseeable long run.

“The BBC stays dedicated to Freddie, Chris and Paddy who’ve been on the middle of the display’s renaissance since 2019, and we are enthusiastic about new initiatives being advanced with each and every of them.

“We will be able to have extra to mention within the close to long run in this. We all know resting the display will likely be disappointing information for fanatics, however it’s the proper factor to do.”

“All different Best Equipment job stays unaffected via this hiatus together with world codecs, virtual, magazines and licensing.”

Former England cricket captain Flintoff was once photographed in public in September for the primary time for the reason that crash. 9 months on, his facial accidents have been nonetheless visual as he joined the England cricket squad for his or her one-day world sequence in opposition to New Zealand.

The twist of fate took place on the Best Equipment check monitor at Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey, and left the sports activities megastar with a number of damaged ribs.

Following the crash, the BBC introduced it will pause manufacturing at the display, co-presented via Take Me Out host Paddy McGuinness and car journalist Chris Harris, because it was once felt it will be “irrelevant” to proceed at the moment.

In October, the BBC stated it had agreed a monetary agreement Flintoff, reported to be price £9m.

A well being and protection manufacturing evaluation of Best Equipment masking earlier seasons earlier than the twist of fate discovered that “whilst BBC Studios had complied with the specified BBC insurance policies and business easiest apply in making the display, there have been essential learnings which might wish to be conscientiously carried out to long run Best Equipment UK productions”.

The file integrated “various suggestions to support approaches to protection”.

There was once a separate investigation into the crash which was once concluded in March. Those findings don’t seem to be being printed.

Flintoff and McGuinness joined Harris in 2019, taking on from Chris Evans and Pals megastar Matt LeBlanc.

The display was once to start with introduced in 1977, that includes a spread of presenters and journalists in a half-hourly slot on BBC Two which proved fashionable right through the Eighties and Nineteen Nineties.

However its relaunch in 2002 as an hour-long leisure motoring display, led via Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James Might, became it into a world hit.

The United Kingdom display is these days bought to extra 150 territories and there are 11 native structure variations, together with in the United States, France and Finland.

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