Aussies miss out on The Grand Tour debut from Clarkson, Hammond & May

Given the new streaming show launches Friday it was always looking unlikely that Amazon Prime would launch here in time and that was confirmed today.

Amazon Prime is the shopping giant’s own streaming competitor to Netflix and locally Stan. The company signed the former Top Gear trio after they left the BBC following Clarkson’s abuse of a show staffer.

Over the past 12 months, working with their former Top Gear Executive Producer and likely many other show staff, Clarkson, Hammond and May have been shooting their new show The Grand Tour.

Set to launch on Friday Amazon ruled out selling the rights to another local provider like Stan, meaning they have to launch their service locally for Australians to be able to watch the show.

Confirmed today on the Amazon website via a video taking the Mickey out of an Aussie emailer, the show will launch on Friday in the USA, UK, Japan and Austria.

That’s Austria not Australia.

Amazon says the show will launch in 200 countries in December including Australia, no news yet on exact date or pricing.

Episodes of The Grand Tour are being released weekly on Fridays so at launch several episodes will be available.

Unfortunately for Amazon, it’s most likely Aussie fans most keen to sign up will have watched it via illegal downloads by then, bringing House of Cards and Game of Thrones syndrome to the Amazon streaming service.  Just wait – next week someone will release “torrent” stats showing just how many Aussies illegally downloaded the show.