Relief

So Chris Evans is to produce and present 18 episodes of Top Gear in the first year of his three year contract, with a view to a run starting in March/April next year. It looks likely he'll drop his perfunctory and charmless performances on the Friday editions of The One Show, once sidekicks are lined up to make big features.

Of all the TV executives pleased with the deal, the happiest is probably Tim Davie at BBC Worldwide, who's been building a whole channel based around the Top Gear ethos. One guesses that titles under consideration may have been BBC Lager, Ballsy BBC and BBC Boyracers, before they settled on BBC Brit. It's available on subscription in Poland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Iceland, fulfilling the BBC public purpose of "bringing the UK to the World".  We can't see it here, but you can get a flavour of its relentless, incisive humour from a Facebook page, including debates on where you keep your ketchup bottle, and graphics like this...