top gear...

My favourite non-fictional TV show is the car magazine show, Top Gear. Why?

I'm probably less interested in cars than most males my age, but Top Gear has the 'X factor'. It presents the topic in an interesting and comical way, has good presenters, and is always a good laugh. Even my mother will watch it!

It wasn't always this way. In the '80s and '90s, Top Gear was a dry motoring show with frightfully dull car reviews by men in woolly jumpers. Their audience was, after all, car geeks. But someone had the insight to bring the show to life, inject comedy, and make it appeal to almost anyone with a heartbeat.

I think the 'X factor' applies, and could be applied, in so many areas. Imagine if Sky at Night had got the Top Gear treatment? Even other media can have the X factor. I'm not really interested in caves, bats, or the formation of mountain ranges, but The National Geographic is a very hard magazine to resist reading.
I wonder what makes and retains the X factor. If you can work it out and apply it to a previously untapped area, you could be riding the back of a tall wave all the way to the bank.