Rove: “People will watch live TV”
"I will say it until I'm blue in the face, the one ace up the sleeve that free-to-air, network, terrestrial television has is live."
- Published by David Knox
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Producer, presenter Rove McManus has given an interview to ABC’s Zan Rowe looking back on his television success including Rove aka Rove Live moving from C31 to Nine to 10.
“That was the peak,” McManus recalls. “We started in 1999 – that was a fun, off-Broadway production – but it properly kicked in at Channel 10 in 2000.
“By 2003 was when I felt like we were part of the fabric. [It felt like] ‘I’m here, I’ve planted my flag,'” he says.
“I will say it until I’m blue in the face, the one ace up the sleeve that free-to-air, network, terrestrial television has is live. Ask The Matildas, ask the Australian Open,” he says.
“People will watch live TV if you do something that doesn’t talk down to people. If you acknowledge, yes there’s other things on, you can go back to bingeing whatever you want on your streaming service. But just come back and watch me for an hour, let’s commune…
“It’s a lost art and it was great to have that while we did. It was so much fun.”
He also notes of Rove Live, which ran largely from 2000 – 2009, “People forget, we were never a ratings juggernaut.”
Roving Enterprises currently produces The Project on 10 and is due to present What’s Your Toy Story? for Disney+.
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- Tagged with Rove, Rove Live, The Project, What’s Your Toy Story?
3 Responses
sports aren’t the only “global events” worthy of Live FTA
(hey, wasn’t Elvis’ Live in Hawaii the biggest global live broadcast since the moon landing? fact check anyone?)
Long live Live TV!
His examples are enormous, hugely expensive sporting events with weeks and months of build-up. Hardly the answer to saving broadcast TV.
FTA has always got large audiences for sport. Global events like the Australian Open and the FIFA Women’s world cup need to be be on FTA to keep people interested, turning up to the event and creating a good atmosphere. Same for the NRL Grand Final and State Of Origin, ALF Grand Final and the Melbourne and Sydney Tests. The question is what else can FTA still do.