Rove Live

Start date: Country of Origin: Australia Genre: talk show Director: Producer: Writer: Cast: Quirky Quote:

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Rove is a weekly talk show based around the comedian Rove McManus (born John McManus II). Featuring interview segments between McManus and celebrity guests, the programme’s format includes sketches, live music and comedy acts. The show originally began in 1999 on the Nine Network but was not renewed after the first season, and it switched to the Ten Network in 2000 under the new name Rove Live. It has since remained on the Ten Network, breaking only following the passing of McManus’ wife, Belinda Emmett, at the end of 2006. Many suspected that Emmett’s passing away would signal the end of McManus’s TV career, but in March 2007 it was announced that the show would relaunch with its original title of Rove.

Viewing figures pre-relaunch in 2007 averaged 700,000 and peaked at 1.1 million in May 2006. Following the speculation over McManus’s future, curious and supportive viewers tuned in to give the show its biggest ever ratings achievement, hitting 1.6 million in April 2007. Rove is produced by Roving Enterprises, McManus’s production company based in Melbourne, which is also responsible for The ARIA Music Awards, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader, Before the Game and Real Stories.  Speaking about the Rove Live show’s direction, McManus said, “I just want to be able to have a say in what happens in the show. I just didn’t want to say yes to something and then after two weeks all of the sudden you have to wear a chicken suit and there’s a wheel and people getting cream pies in the face and there’s a segment called ‘Would you lick this?’ or whatever”. In 2002 Rove Live won a Logie for Most Popular Light Entertainment Programme, a feat that would be repeated in 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2007.