The only news story vying for the attention of more people than the Germanwings Airline crash this week was the sacking of Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson.

Both may have been unavoidable, but the latter will still be news long after the airline tragedy has been put to bed.

• Top Gear co-hosts may also quit
• BBC sacks Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear
• ‘There is no Top Gear without Clarkson’
• Top Gear: Calls for Alan Partridge to replace Clarkson

It’s ridiculous that a TV show about automobiles is drawing more Twitter and media interest (based on social media stats) than an airline disaster killing 150 people.

But why is it happening?

It’s because 350 million people around the world ‘know’ Jeremy Clarkson personally and let him and his mates in their living rooms every week, keeping the BBC alive like a drip feed of cash, more so than virtually every other resource they have combined.

It’s their tent pole; their Iron Man, Star Wars, and Star Trek combined and also commands the attention of more female viewers worldwide than men, curiously enough.

Today, Director General Tony Hall – a stalwart BBC news pioneer who is all about hard facts and not at all about entertainment – sacked Clarkson.

If you tuned in late, Clarkson, who fronts the most successful show in more than 200 years of the BBC (sic) was two hours late arriving at a luxury hotel in the Yorkshire Dales after keeping the helicopter waiting for a post shoot drinking session at a local pub.

Had he arrived on time around 8pm, there would have been no problem.

BBC boss Lord Tony Hall. Photo: Getty

Because he was hours late, the kitchen had closed, the chef had gone home, and the ten rooms booked at the hotel had long since greeted the crew and production folks. So Jeremy and Co were only offered a ‘cold meat plate and cheese’ from the kitchen.

Jeremy went mental, according to witnesses, and besides an expletive-ridden episode, punched the lead producer in the mouth, splitting his lip.

Question: If you were producing the most important show in your country, would you possibly think to ensure, no matter what, that even Manuel from Fawlty Towers was left en casa to cook up some hot grub for a notoriously finicky and volatile star who had just had a two hour drinking session after a long day of filming?

Answer: Apparently not if you were Oison Tymon, the capable, affable Irish producer who will now disappear into the mist like George Mallory on the verge of Everest’s summit, only to return as a multiple choice question on game shows in years to come.

“Name the producer Jeremy Clarkson struck which ended Top Gear’s reign as the Number One British media export back in 2015?”

Or …

“Lorry driver Oisin Tymon, who delivers Halal frozen fish and chips in the oft-maligned area of Tower Hamlets in London, was buried in his native Ireland after taking his own life. He was best known as the man who ‘blank’.”

So, what’s a mother to do in this case?

The problem is, you can’t have it both ways. If you let the lion out of the cage and into the circus, people are going to be bitten and perhaps eaten. And we will pay a lot of money to see that every day of the week. It’s why we watch.

Clarkson is a very, very entertaining man, a witty and abrasive behemoth who draws a crowd that loves him. That comes at a price.

If every Grand Prix was like this year’s Melbourne Grand Prix, nobody would ever watch. We want crashes, accidents, and tyres flying off the course taking out race marshals. That’s what we pay for.

Clarkson is a very, very entertaining man. A witty and abrasive behemoth who draws a crowd that loves him. That comes at a price.

And if you are going to have a lion running around in the crowd (let alone a lion who drinks alcohol and enjoys eating people) you’d better have a group of lion tamers and medics who can take the heat or get out of the kitchen.

Jeremy Clarkson’s Top Gear co-hosts James May and Richard Hammond have hinted they may quit the show. Photo: Getty

The problem here is, the cook had abandoned the kitchen hours before and nobody had paid to make him stay, or found anybody else in the Dales who could come in and fire up the stove.

It would be fair to say, in some months and years, Lord Hall CBE might be asking the question that should have been asked to Jeremy Clarkson that night at 10pm: “Would you like fries with that?”

So is it wrong to punch and assault and bully people, especially superiors or employees or team members? Of course.

But if you are going to set that example, live on principles, and kill the golden goose, you are going to have to pay the piper, and the piper in this case, are paying viewers, stations, syndicates, and audiences. To the tune of over £67million per year!

This was an accident that was always going to happen. Talented nutty and abrasive people live in the entertainment industry. They are part and parcel. This is not logical or ‘right’ or ‘nice’ – it just is. It’s the high price of drawing audiences and keeping them year in and year out.

The other alternative, is to present a show like Top Gear Australia.

I rest my case…