It was always going to be a tough battle but Channel 10 has waved the white flag on Rove’s Saturday night show, confirming it has been cancelled after just two episodes.
Having found favour with 10’s bosses after its original airing in 2018’s Pilot Week, there were high hopes within the industry that Rove McManus could prove there was an appetite for variety television again. Unfortunately those hopes were dashed when just 138,000 metro viewers tuned in for episode two, down from the 244,000 that watched the premiere episode.
The program was plagued with problems from the start. TV Blackbox can reveal the set designer was sacked a day before the premiere and replaced. Producers were concerned the set looked too much like Hey Hey It’s Saturday, despite multiple options being put forward.
TV Blackbox also broke the news that 10 was taking viewer feedback on twitter out of context and misrepresenting their views in promos for the show.
With a string of bad publicity and bad ratings TV Tonight reported the decision was made to end the run early.
Rove McManus said;
“It was clear looking at the numbers that the audience we hoped would find a free-wheeling live show on a Saturday night just weren’t there. We spoke with 10 today and we both called it.
“The opportunity to play live in front of Australia again was fun, no matter how brief, and I would like to thank my amazing co-stars, the behind the scenes team and everyone at 10 who got behind Saturday Night Rove.”
A Network 10 spokesperson said;
“Unfortunately Saturday Night Rove hasn’t resonated with viewers the way we had hoped, so Rove and 10 have made the decision to remove it from the schedule. Rove is a sensational entertainer and a close friend of 10, and we thank him for all his hard work, and all the laughs, on Saturday Night Rove.”
As discussed on the latest episode of the TV Blackbox Podcast the show failed to deliver an entertaining program. In fact the show didn’t seem to know its audience, often swearing and making very adult jokes in the 7.30 timeslot, a traditional “family” viewing timeslot, especially on a Saturday night.
Host Dan Bennett suggested a move to Tuesday night in a bid to save the show but all parties involved have decided to fold and move on.
Let’s hope this isn’t the end of variety television in this country!
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That’s a real shame for everyone involved. Given a chance, it could have grown into something big like Have You Been Paying Attention did. I think the main problem was that there were too many people for Rove to interact with, and not enough time to build chemistry. In the second episode there was Judith, the two Alex’s, Justin, plus three other comedians and Kevin Rudd – all in the space of an hour! The magic of the Rove series on Nine was the chemistry between Rove and the “kids on the couch” Pete, Corinne and Dave who would chat throughout the whole show.
You cannot Grow on an audience when it drops by half after the first show Dan. The show was woeful.
Rove started on Nine, but spent the majority of its life on Ten.