Jeremy Clarkson's $70m for trade-in

Ex-Top Gear hosts from left, Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson and James May.

Jeremy Clarkson will earn more than $23 million a year for his new Amazon car show, with James May, Richard Hammond and producer Andy Wilman close behind.

The former Top Gear host, unceremoniously sacked from the BBC show this year, will reportedly pocket $70m from the streaming service over a three-year period.

The rumoured fee means the 55-year-old would be paid nearly $2m per episode, making him Britain's highest paid TV host.

Co-stars Hammond, 45, and May, 52, along with his school friend Wilman, could earn $16m over the same period at $1.4m per episode.

A source told the Daily Mirror: "Clarkson may have lamped someone over a hot dinner but he'll be raking it in."

Amazon Prime apparently spent $380m signing up the trio, making it Amazon's biggest single investment in original content to date. With 36 episodes in the pipeline, each individual episode will have a reported $10m budget.

In contrast, the budget for Top Gear was just over $2.3m, including the presenter costs.

Founder and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos admitted the deal had been "very, very, very expensive".

The announcement of the new show ended months of speculation about the trio's future after numerous broadcasters and online streaming services, including Netflix, had tried to snare the presenters.

All three, as well as Wilman, left the BBC in March following the incident at a hotel in North Yorkshire, which took place after a day of filming. According to an internal BBC probe, Clarkson attacked a producer, Oisin Tymon.

Wilman, widely regarded as the brains behind Top Gear, revealed it was the budget, plus autonomy over the show, which secured the team.

Because Amazon is a US-owned internet brand, the deal gets round a ban on Clarkson doing a car show with any UK broadcaster until 2017.

Amazon Prime is one of the new rash of international companies offering access to TV shows and movies online for a monthly subscription.

- Daily Mail