"Saturday Night Rove" Has Been Axed After Two Episodes

Rove McManus’ big TV comeback… isn’t coming back.

You may or may not be surprised to learn that Saturday Night Rove, the Channel 10 show that had to generously massage viewers’ tweets into words of support for its ads, has been axed.

@Network10Comms @Rove @SatNightRove @DailyMailAU Network Ten manipulated my original tweet, unfortunately if you read my tweets you will see I was not impressed #dailymail #SaturdayNightRove pic.twitter.com/M8D1IOrZeY

— Trevor White ™ (@TdwhiteWhite) September 1, 2019

The show was meant to be Rove McManus’ triumphant return to the televisual airwaves after the mid-2000s mega-success of Rove Live. Alas, it turns out people didn’t tune in.

As TV Tonight reports, Channel 10 dropped the axe following the second episode’s airing on Saturday night, where it drew just 138,000 viewers. Its first ep premiered to an already-disappointing 244,000. However, what was most disturbing about the week-to-week decline was the fact there wasn’t even any AFL or cricket to compete with in week two, and yet it still lost 100,000 viewers.

In a statement, Rove 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."

Saturday Night Rove now joins a notorious list of failed Australian comedy shows that were yanked from the airwaves after just a few eps, including Ben Elton Live From Planet Earth and Let Loose Live. Though, to Rove’s credit, those programs weren’t competing with Netflix and Stan when they were given the boot.

So, farewell Saturday Night Rove. We hardly knew ye. Here’s a picture from better times (AKA the day before it was cancelled):

All hail the king 👑 Thanks to @MrKRudd for coming on @SatNightRove, it was a pleasure having you on. It was less of a pleasure having you destroy me so severely in handball ✋🏻🎾😕 #SaturdayNightRove #RoveVRudd pic.twitter.com/I1h8rF5ug6

— Rove McManus (@Rove) August 31, 2019

Header Image: Twitter (@Rove)