Winter sports enthusiasts say that BBC chiefs have ruined Ski Sunday by attempting to revamp the long-running show as “Top Gear in the snow”.

The new series concentrates on Alpine travel and lifestyle features, and includes a celebrity skiing challenge with guests such as Tara Palmer-Tomkinson. The competitive downhill action has been reduced to barely ten minutes.

Skiing fans who relied on the BBC for full slalom and downhill coverage, including the traditional plucky British failure and spectacular wipeouts, are furious.

Tomorrow night’s programme features its new presenter, the former Olympic skier Graham Bell, searching for brown bears in a park near the Dolomites. Digital viewers can press the red button for World Cup slalom action from Zagreb.

The BBC said that World Cup skiing was a “niche” interest. The new show is designed to broaden the audience from Britain’s 1.5 million regular skiers to three million viewers. The revamped programme, however, has attracted an average audience of only 1.5 million viewers. On one occasion viewing figures fell to 1.1 million.

David Vine, presenter for most of the show’s 30-year run, has switched off. “It’s a travesty,” he said. “If the BBC desire to do a Top Gear in the snow, fair enough, but don’t call it Ski Sunday or use the programme’s famous anthem.”

Among the complaints on the BBC website, one viewer wrote: “The BBC used to get people interested in winter sports by showing incredible races complemented with intelligent race commentary.”

The axe was hovering over Top Gear before the car-test format was turned into a stunt-filled Sunday night BBC Two entertainment show starring Jeremy Clarkson.

Ski Sunday had to change, Bell argues. “We have to appeal to the non-skiers first and foremost, and if that means using celebrities then bring them on. If we can encourage even 2 per cent of our viewers to try skiing or snowboarding then we will make a massively positive impact on the UK ski industry. We are clearly the Marmite of sports programmes right now. Hardcore skiers should really count themselves lucky to have so much access to what is in real terms a minority sport in the UK,” he said.

Philip Bernie, head of BBC TV Sport Editorial, said: “The lack of a top-rank British competitor means the racing has become a niche event. Our reports on snowboarding in Japan and Australia are attracting younger viewers and we are tapping into great interest in the Alpines as a leisure destination.” There was more World Cup coverage than ever “behind the red button”, Mr Bernie added.

Tomorrow’s celebrity skier is Frank Gardner, the BBC security correspondent confined to a wheelchair after being shot in Saudi Arabia. Mr Gardner takes the slalom challenge at the Italian resort of Courmayeur using a specially adapted chair called a “sitski”.

He said: “It’s basically a wheelchair without wheels, a moulded plastic bucket mounted on a spring, attached to a racing ski. In each hand I hold an ‘outrigger’ — a collapsible mini-ski on the end of a pole to help me balance and steer down the mountain.”

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