Say hi to your mum for me: Why Rove is confident he can take back Saturday night
Saturday night isn’t exactly a hot spot for television viewers - beyond sport or movie reruns, there isn’t much that can draw a viewer’s eyes to the box. But Rove McManus is confident he’s got the right antidote to dire Saturday night programming. He tells Mumbrella’s Hannah Blackiston why he thinks viewers are ready for Saturday Night Rove.
It wasn’t necessarily the next place we thought we’d see Rove McManus, but last year, during Ten’s first Pilot Week, there he was. 10 years after he’d told us to say hi to our mums for him for the last time, Rove was back on our screens with Bring Back Saturday Night, a return to the live comedy/ talk show format that made him famous all those years ago on Rove Live. Pulling 203,000 metro viewers, the show wasn’t the most-watched of the pilots, but it was commissioned for a 2019 season.
That season will kick-off tomorrow, and in the lead up I was granted a quick phone interview with Rove, who was no doubt in the middle of the kind of hardcore press round one has to embark on when they’re mononymous. Despite that, he was incredibly friendly and perky when I spoke to him, and was keen to tell me why he believes audiences are ready to return to Saturday nights on the couch.
“We have to remember that one of the most successful television shows we ever had was on a Saturday night, Hey Hey It’s Saturday which almost ran for 30 years. So there is an audience there, and I know it was a much much different era to what we have now with the ways people can consume their content and the list of options that is seemingly endless. But I do feel there is an audience we aren’t being served on a Saturday,” Rove says.
“If you don’t want to watch sport, if you don’t want to watch a murder mystery from the BBC or if you’re not happy to watch a movie that’s 20 to 30 years old, then, of course, you’re going to go off free to air and start searching elsewhere. I think for me, what would I be watching out of those options and I know at the moment, I know where my sporting team are at on the ladder and as we head into football finals it’s not that interesting to me, and they’re not always playing on a Saturday night anyway, and I’m not one of those people who watched absolutely every game, and I’m not going to tune in to find which quaint English village has had a murder this week, so what are my options?”
Using himself as the example, a father with a young family who isn’t out on a Saturday night, but who still wants content that’s entertaining and engaging, Rove says he strongly believes there’s an audience there to be targeted. To begin with, that’s what success looks like for Saturday Night Rove to him – to answer those needs and to fulfil the audience that he believes is there.
“Obviously we have long-term hopes and dreams, and the idea is that there’s a seed that can be planted and with the right care and love and attention it will grow into something that could be quite successful.”
Once we jump the giant hurdle that is ‘Do viewers watch Saturday night television?’ we come to the next one. It’s a very different world in 2019 from 1999 when Rove Live premiered, or 2000 when it moved to its long-term home of Ten. The Logie-winning format, which won Most Popular Light Entertainment Program in 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009, featured content like Sex Office, Who Would You Turn Gay For?, and a famed interview with Sacha Baron Cohen’s character Bruno which had to be censored. But if Saturday Night Rove is going to follow a similar unscripted comedy format, is Rove worried audiences may now respond differently to how they did in 2000?
“We’ll see what happens after our first show, but the response to the pilot was really positive and while there’ll always be some trolls in there for the sake of it, I was saying to people ‘Don’t look at the comments after the pilot aired’ but they said ‘You really should, they’re amazing’. So it does feel like there’s an element of demand for this type of show. As far as the ideas we’re picking, we’re not pulling any punches for what we’re trying to do. We’re not thinking ‘If we do this joke or this idea what would be the fallout of it?’, otherwise you’d never do anything. So really it’s about getting into it as best we can.
“I think the biggest issues have been in the boring legal stuff. We used to be able to show sets of other shows, or send a camera to someone’s house. There’s just a few more hoops you have to jump to, or forms you have to sign. As far as the creative goes, we’re still just trying to make a funny, entertaining and engaging show.”
What that will look like in practice we don’t yet know, but if Rove is as confident in the audiences as he sounds, we should expect to see him Bring Back Saturday Night.
Rove has his tense all wrong. There WAS and audience there. HHIS stopped production because that was changing it it hadn’t changed already. This will be like Sunday Night Takeaway but worse, as Ch10 are not great promoters of their own content. Following tiny ratings, this show will be cancelled as soon as is contractually possible.
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Rove has his moment in 2001, but its gone now. FADE away like Daryl Sommers…
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This should give hope to the other 136 people who hosted the 2DayFM breakfast show over the past six years.
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Rove who? Didn’t he leave Australia to make his career elsewhere?
How’d that go?
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And your grammer sucks!
Rove rocks
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And your grammer sucks!
Rove rocks
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Haha your grammar sucks!
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I got my gear off in London about 18 years ago to say hi to Rove’s mum. It was about 5 degrees Celsius and I’d like to ask if his mum got the message and I hope it was worth it, cause I got man flu…?♂️
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Rove has never , ever , ever had a good show that has succeeded. He is not funny and is basically boring as. He is everything wrong with free to air TV – no new ideas, old boring talent who is just NOT funny. How desperate is it when he keeps getting gigs after soooo many failed TV shows. People – HE’S JUST NOT FUNNY. Move on.
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Daryl summers had a number one show for over 25 years. What are you even talking about? Rove has had zero successful shows and is an utter fraud. Daryl, whilst a weird dude, had a great show for a quarter of a century. Get your facts right fella – no idea.
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It wasnt bad but i think personally this is the wrong time slot im a mother of 2 very unhappy of the show too many swear words is this what it comes down to teaching our kids to watch these kind of shows. Back in the good old days rove was more layed back less swearing unfortantly this is not the kind of thing i want to teach my 10 yr old child. Im in my mid 40s im hoping channel 10 will do something about this… Take in consideration 7 30pm saturday night live with unpleasent language a family show reallyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy??
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Really Liz… wrong forum.
All the distressed and hysterical mothers are protecting their children’s delicate ears over in the AdNews comments
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I watched it last night as I changed channel pretty much 10 minutes into the program as I felt I was watching the interview show on channel 10 especially when rove was talking to Jessica Melboy etc.
I was expecting a big band show with rove sitting on desk speaking to his guests, I think rove should bring back a Saturday night show like he did last time he was on air.
Just like the David letterman show or jimmy fallon show , you know what I mean .
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* Grammar
Your spelling sucks
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Rove should of started his show a little later cause the footy is on and I am sure people would rather watch NRL matches
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