Rove calls end to TV show in a year of weak ratings
Rove McManus last night announced the end of his long-running Channel Ten variety programme which has this year suffered from lacklustre ratings.
Last night it attracted just 707,000 viewers, lower than the 1.5m peak it has previously enjoyed this year. On Sunday of last week, it had 678,000 viewers.
However, the network points out that on average, this year it has attracted an audience of 922,000, which is in line with its performances in 2008 and 2007. This is also above 2005 and 2006 levels when it recorded an average of 825,000 and 807,000 respectively.
His 10-year-old show has also not been helped by the fall in ratings experienced by Australian Idol, which is aired in the timeslot before Rove. Last night Idol attracted 923,000 viewers.
There is already speculation that McManus may make a return to radio, after being recently spotted dining with Merrick Watts from Nova 969. Watts’ on-air partner Tim Ross last week announced that he would not be returning to the station on their Merrick & Rosso breakfast show next year.
McManus’ production company Roving Enterprises will continue to work with Ten through The 7pm Project and Before The Game.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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10 years too late.
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No one saw the show, hence relying on the media to talk about the end of a show. It shows how people don’t really care
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Interesting how it was done. No announcement + the usual weeks of promotion about the finale, which would have surely boosted last night’s ratings. To his credit, I guess he really did say goodbye on his terms.
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Amused that more than 700,000 people can be categorised as “no-one”. To put that into perspective, that’s 3% of the nation’s population — or about 9x as many people than the Liberal Party has members, or 4x the ALP.
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The problem wasn’t Rove, it was the time slot – late Sunday night after big weekends when people just want to go to bed for work Monday… Why do all Australian stations put good Aussie shows to late time slots, only for ratings to then fall and then the show gets axed? We then end up with some American crap in its place and our Aussies are put out of work (this also happened with channel 7’s ‘All Saints'”)?
But thanks Rove for your entertainment and for being a great guy…..
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I seriously doubt he wants to take a step backwards to move to Sydney morning radio.
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Rove’s not funny, never was. Good riddance!
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I love it how there are always haters. It’s these same people who complain about the lack of diversity on TV.. how there are too many American shows.. why there are endless re-runs of simpsons and two and a half men.. why we bring back dated ideas (Hey Hey).. It’s a pity in a country of such diverse talent, our top TV shows are usually the the news or border security (sic). I guess we like to take down people who we precieve as tall poppies.. Congrates to Rove for an entertaining 10 years. All you haters can now enjoy endless repeats of NCIS..
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Rove was great. This is sad and the show will be missed for sure. Australia doesnt have anything else like this. Some things about the show did become more polished over time, but other nice elements were lost-I’m assuming because of higher powers-like the Pete factor. Why did he end up with a good 2 minutes a week? It used to be Pete and Rove together all night.. Also could Channel 10 be scared of a Hey Hey return?
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Man I miss rove already. It’s pretty sad
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I LOVE rove funny show
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Sadly the demise of Rove on Sundays does leave the door open for Ch9.
‘Hey, Hey its Sunday’ perhaps
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I seriously don’t understand the Rove haters. The guy is a massive talent, spontaneous, smart and a great interviewer, what is it that you don’t like about him? I for one will surely miss his show but also agree with some of the comments above re: time slot.
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Bye Bye Rove. You will not be missed on my Television
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rove had become a sunday night regular on my TV. I will miss the show and all the Aussie talent showcased. It is sad that by ending the show many good people will be out of work. I hope rove can re-group and rise again before his crew disperses….
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Rove, nerd humour at its most banal.
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i was watching re-runs of Safran vs God and discovered Rove put in hard yards on channel 31 back in the day, that put him up a notch in my book. leaving him at notch one. him off the air now puts him at notch 2. kudos
hopefully they will give micallef the slot – that is a sure fire way to fix those sunday night blues
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Rove was such a great Australian show that he and Australia should be proud of. After all that he has been through over the years, he and his show have still remained entertaining over each and every year. Now who is going to attract such an array of global talent from the music and acting industry to Australia? He had built such a rapport with so many big names that it’s a shame to see him go.
I agree that a lot of the “lower than usual” ratings would be due to the Sunday time slot as well. Tuesday night was so much better! 9:30pm on a Sunday evening is just such an awkward time for any show and yet he still managed to pull good ratings as quoted by Stilgherrian.
I wish Rove the very best in whatever he does decide to do. He deserves the rewards of his hard work and dedication.
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Amazing how many “haters” there are out there. If you didn’t like Rove you shouldn’t have watched and if you didn’t watch, how can you have an opinion?
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I didn’t get Rove, I never understood his appeal. He’s a love him or hate him type of personality, I fall into the latter. I tried to watch the show on several occasions but found no humour whatsoever, laughing at your own jokes or saying them really really LOUDLY doen’t make them funnier. I hope now that when asked by my flatmate on Sunday night, what’s on? I can give a better response than shit-all on 10. Goodbye Rove, please never bother our screens again.
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Not haters, just not Rove admirers.
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Happy to see Rove go, it was time to take him out to the paddock and put him out of his misery. The show got particularly shit this year with that forced “everyone sitting together on the couch just having a convo” thing they had going on. I just hope to christ that this opening doesn’t incite channel ten to give Hamish and Andy their own show. Oh god, that would be painful. The nations’ “wackiest” ex-private school boys are as about as funny as a dead baby.
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Points well made Luan. You know the worst thing about the the Rove critics? in my opinion They’ve never got off their fat arses and tried to do anything themselves. It appears that even reaching for the remote to was too much effort for them.
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I used to watch Rove……but then it all got a little beige really, and I didn’t like being “yelled” at through the TV on a Sunday night. Why did all the comedians on there yell at the camera? So I just stopped watching it. Good run though Rove, will be very interesting to see what they replace him with.
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It is obvious that there was pressure coming from Ten managment and it was not a choice he made unto himself. last night he made quips regarding Ten managment saying ‘if you’re going to do the same thing each week with What The, you can’t have the same people on each week too’. This is obviously referring to Carrie Bickmore, Dave Hughes etc who were on regularly, and were given the boot for 2009. I think Rove would have felt guilty in regards to this, thus backing the new ‘7pm Project ‘of which many of his old staff feature – a Roving Enterprises production.
He wanted to keep his friends on the show, Ten didn’t – they wanted something new each week. I think this pushed him to call it quits, along with the poor ratings.
The timeslot factor was a stupid move which he more or less admitted was a mistake.
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Perhaps we all thought we were funnier, taller, of higher wit, faster, sharper, smoother, more handsome, a faster runner, better connected, harder workers, hell just better than Rove (and his team). I mean I dont have a TV show and a little bit of fame now do I? Why does he deserve it more than I do? He’s just another guy….
Truth is from humble media beginnings (remember those tripple j mornings) he built a rather successful TV show and entertainment company, endured true human hardships, evolved and kept making some of us smile. Which is more than a lot of us can say…… Cheers to the laughs Rove.
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Why has Rove been the only variety show on a Sunday night for 10 years?
No wonder everyone is over Rove… and Idol, for that matter.
BTW, now the TV ratings season is just about over as well, is everyone looking forward to repeats and loads of junk that 7,9 and 10 wouldn’t play during weeks 7-49?
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I personally think that Rove is one of the best Australian made programmes – however, that was not supposed to be a compliment.
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Hmmm… I never said that Rove Live‘s ratings were “good”, just that 700,000 people isn’t zero. I was merely objecting to the sloppy language of “no-one watched it”. Still, it’s presumably a lot fewer people than TEN wants to pull on a Sunday night.
I’m fascinated by the people who say they didn’t like the show and are glad to see it go. I mean, if you don’t like something by all means don’t watch it — but why stop others who may enjoy it doing so? It’s not like there’s a shortage of entertainment this century.
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I really like to see how several dedicated fans have whole heartedly supported him, and to set the record straight, I can too be classified in that category. Rove was refreshing, light entertaining, and a joy to watch and hence I agree with the comment about how Rove haters hate him so much to have an opinion and publicly declare it on this site. However guys, even though they THINK Rove sucks, we KNOW he rules and is probably the best thing that ever happened to Pure Aussie television. Roving enterprises co-produces the Aria awards, logies and of course 7pm project which has suffered heaps of unjustified online vilification. We all know you watch Rove and there’s no point publicising your hatred if you can’t seriously be bothered to press a button on your remote.
Anyhow, let’s just let the Rove haters have their opinion, if it really gives them that much satisfaction. Let them be entertained and fulfilled by their unjustified and condemning vilification and of course the perpetual recycling of US Cop dramas. I’m sure its what they live for.
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I am not a hater. Rove was not very good though. I remember an appalling interview with Adam Sandler and Chris Rock. Even Sandler looked bemused at Rove’s 3rd question because he had given Rove a total gift, yet Rove just kept on asking the questions in order, which were probably written down… I don’t hate him – he would be good for children’s TV. He could be the Noel Edmond’s of Australia. (Noel was a UK presenter and appealed to the kids / simpletons…)
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p.s.
Matty Johns is very good at questioning techniques. He is not as good as Andrew Denton who in my opinion is extremely fantastically the best around in Oz by a long shot. Nevertheless John’s is bright, spontaneous and witty. Shame about his shenanigans because he could have hosted a fantastic chat show, similar to Rove, however blown it out of the water…
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Say bye to your Mum for me.
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“The guy is a massive talent, spontaneous, smart and a great interviewer”
Hahahaha thanks for the laugh!
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Yep, one of the worst interviewers of all time. Wooden, predictable and most unforgivably doesn’t listen to the answers.
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Andrew Denton!!!! The MOST sycophantic interviewer I’ve seen for some time. When he is not grinning like a lapdog, he is trying to be a smarta****.
He is incredibly hard to watch – that stupid grin.
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I liked Rove in the early days, but the changes in the last three or four years have made it fairly embarrassing to watch. Ren, I agree with you – the jokey conversational tone they were aiming for with the huge couch didn’t work (and produced a bunch of embarrassing moments where the guests sat around doing bugger all for the entire show, except for cut away reaction shots). Even the set was less inviting.
Maybe the worst crime in terms of comedy was that it became all too predictable by the end: the blonde girl reading out her one-two joke news lines, Pete showing blurry Youtube clips, Ryan Shelter introducing a pre-recorded clip in his usual style, Rove making jokes about how short he is and so on. (Those jokes were cute ten years ago when he still had a boy-ish face, but he’s too old for that now). The interviews were hit and miss. The Barry Humphries one a few weeks ago was fairly embarrassing.
If only for that reason, I’m glad to see the peaceful end to the show. At least Rove was able to end it on his own terms (or at least say that was the case).
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Come on – the jokes were bad from the very beginning. Even since he left Channel 9 and got rid of Dave Callum things went downhill. He culled away his old posse, (Corrine Grant another casualty) in favour of ‘Carrie Bickmore’, whatever she is. Interviews – if you can call sitting around sharing a laugh with a celebrity an interview – were appalling. Pre-recorded bits are not good. This was marginally an inch better than Hey Hey. Which is not a good thing.
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It’s sad to hear that Rove won’t be back. I really enjoyed his show…I liked that he had others in that show such as Ryan Sheldon, Pete Space, Hamish and Andy.
I’m not originally from Australia, I came to live here 2 years ago and one of the things I loved the most about Australian television was Rove. He had a different comedic approach to his show and that’s what made it fun.
Rove will be sorely missed….
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I think he was fired.
As if he wouldn’t have done a massive send off. He was sacked, sacked, sacked.
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Mary. Andrew Denton asks the best leading questions, better than many global interviewers in fact.
Rove – not talentless, however should be dressing up as a clown as opposed to interviewing or cracking jokes off the cuff…
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Love ROve!!! So dus NZ ,cm make a show over here lol
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GIVE HAMISH AND ANDY THEIR OWN SHOW YOU SUCK!
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Well…I didn’t hear about it until it was on the news.
To be honest, the whole Rove show in my eyes went downhill in the episodes following the death of his wife Belinda…
I was absolutely glued to the show in I think 04-07 but after that I really hate to say that it just became too embarrassing and awkward to watch.
Perhaps it was the Channel 10 executives or whoever getting a grip on what the show entailed, he was probably told to read the questions the way he did for the interviews by whoever was handling the script, who we all know was terrible, sorry.
I think that he was much more humorous when Belinda was around and perhaps because of her illness he was always so spontaneous and funny because that was his way of coping?
Someone definitely caused the show to change though and I will bet that wasn’t Rove. I was incredibly surprised when most of his supporting team went onto the 7pm project…it made absolutely no sense to me. I think Rove needed that last good team because they worked so well together and especially after all his recent personal life experiences, he needed those people in his workplace(!) who would respond well to the conversation/humour. Why on earth would HE tell them to leave, it was a perfect team?? Stupid channel 10 is all I can say.
Anyway, I think the best years of Rove were 04-06, for memory they were spontaneous, very funny, and much more intelligent than the ones I have seen recently.
Perhaps this is all sounding too personal/emotional but this was a variety show after all and their personalities were out to play…just a shame that the show couldn’t have stayed on a Tuesday night and that the creative changes became so primitive and embarrassing rather than lightly entertaining.
And lastly from an outsider’s point of view I am glad Rove and Tasma have found each other, hope they stay together for life, perhaps now Rove has conquered his life dream he can make a new life dream or several in fact and soar to new heights in whatever it might be…
I hope he stays in the media light, and it would be so great for him to succeed with something inspirational even if it isn’t with a show or simply being a comedian. Thats just my thought.
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Rove, Sorry mate but won’t miss you at all.
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