Clean Up on Clarkson’s Farm

Sky Open has confirmed the profanity in Clarkson’s Farm will be cut for its free-to-air run (7.30 Thursdays from August 15).

Jeremy Clarkson’s streaming mega-hit for Prime Video is rife with farmyard vernacular that’s unsuitable for an evening broadcast.

“We’ve edited out the bad language to meet certificate requirements for a 7.30pm transmission,” a Sky Open spokeswoman says.

While that’s an understandable trade-off to win the show the biggest general audience it deserves, the earthy, colourful language is critical to its character and ‘charm’.

“On Clarkson’s Farm, I say the F-word more than I say ‘cow,'” Clarkson wrote last year in The Sun, dubbing the swear word “the brilliant Swiss Army Knife of the English language”.

Better news is Sky Open’s censoring will end there. The rest of the programme’s content will not be edited to fit a commercial hour slot.

“The programme is likely to come in at around a one-hour 10-minute slot factoring in promos and commercials,” the spokeswoman says.

Thirty years ago the likes of TVNZ would regularly trim BBC favourites like Blackadder so episodes wouldn’t run longer than a commercial half-hour.