Revealed: The Grand Tour's profits more than tripled last year

The Grand Tour made overall profits of over £2.3 million in 2017, more than triple the £707,000 it made in 2016.

W. Chump & Sons, the production company set up in July 2015 to fund and manage the production of the boys' new car show after they left the BBC, released its annual profits report this week.

The company, which is jointly owned by Clarkson, Hammond and May (along with Andy Wilman, executive producer of The Grand Tour and, formerly, Top Gear) presented its full report to Companies House, the UK companies registrar.

For 2016, W. Chump & Sons Ltd. brought in a total revenue of £40,870,158. The Cost of Sales came in at £36,560,626, leaving the company with a Gross Profit of £4,309,532.

Administrative Expenses of £3,293,360 are subtracted from that figure, and then the Interest Receivable and Similar Income (at £117,979) is added. Tax of £426,830 is taken off, leaving the company with a final profit of £707,321 for 2016.

In 2017, the total revenue dropped to £30,654,127, but Cost of Sales fell by a similar amount to £26,550,636. That made the Gross Profit £4,103,491 which, combined with reduced Administrative Expenses of £1,366,397, slightly increased Interest Receivable and Similar Income of £120,299 and a Tax bill of £551,188, produced a much increased final profit figure of £2,306,205.

Several pages of the report are signed by Captain Slow on behalf of the team, his signature reading "James D. May". (His middle name is Daniel, if you were wondering.)

The short statement accompanying the accounts, titled Strategic Report, says: "The directors [that's Clarkson, Hammond, May and Wilman] are keen to continue focusing on producing quality programming."

Sounds good to me.

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