£12m for a three year contract, that will cover Top Gear and an odd appearance on other BBC programmes, I think it was about two year ago that Top Gear Netted the BBC something like £15m, and that was when they only had a 50% stake in the production company (they now own it outright). As far as I am concerned, the current line up on TG is one hell of a good team, and if they lose Clarkson, I am pretty sure that Sky or ITV would snap him up for a similar type of show, May and the Hamster would in all likelihood follow Clarkson, TG would soon start to drop down the ratings and would not be bought by quite so many other countries. Or to put it another way, you may not like TG, but without it the BBC would not have as much cash available to produce a show you do like