Rubbish, Mr Mott, you expect the exact opposite. But you realise the importance to steer PR away from the... icky reality of what it is you expect will radicalise Sundays on Ten. Let's cut the fat of network spin, and steer it back. 

 

Since most users here are, for whatever reasons, mostly followers of pop culture TV, we all know very well how important Sundays have been to Ten. It's the night of "time to go...", and of the weigh-in. Except, of course, simultaneous to the kilos peeling off the Biggest Losers, so too have the ratings been sliding away from what was supposed to be Ten's last sure-fire punch in the reality stakes (with Big Brother far from being counted out, but certainly between a rock and a hard place). Recently, Seven have surged to take the lead with its imported drama and comedy, and that's understandably going to worry the boys at Ten. If Big Brother fails to secure an eviction audience, then all bets are off - if you're not watching who is leaving the house, you're certainly not going to waste your time on what they're doing during the week (talking to birds or stealing each others' shoes, perhaps - oh, how exciting!). So it is vital for Ten to pull our attention back to Sundays, and for the first time in a while (do note that my vicious reviews of Ten's decisions - Yasmin, Tench, and now The Con Test - were all swipes that many thought were too harsh, but all shows did fail, as I said they would), I'm about to tip my hat to Ten for a very smart move, indeed. Welcome back, Rove. And welcome to Sunday nights.

Oooooh, Ten, that's clever. No, really, it is.

A "new look" Rove will now be slotted in at 8.30pm on Sundays. And this will be the extent of it - there'll be a "new look", and not much else as far as content goes (which is smart, because revamping Rove beyond recognition would be rather stupid). They've admitted it will retain the same format, and that the show will revolve around the talk show spine, with sidekick Peter Hellier as the supporting limb. So "new", here, is talking about fonts and theme music, and no doubt a new look couch, perhaps, for the guests. But this talk of the "new" Rove is all a distraction, a justification of the move that doesn't have to go near the real reasons why Rove has been moved to Sunday nights - not because his "all new" show is more suited to this slot than it is Tuesdays, but because the return of Rove is absolutely assured a phenomenal opening night (on a night for Ten where the word, "phenomenal", hasn't been used for quite some time). To go into "why" would be terribly silly PR, because marketing decisions capitalising on something like terminal illness can come across as a tad inappropriate. And the irony is that the impending interest in the show itself is far from morally sound - audiences can be driven by dubious interests, but the shows being driven by it is something the crowds do not accept, because truth be told, the crowd very much likes to pretend there is no dubious interest of their own.

Rubbish. Here's the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle. Last year, Rove, while we may think of him as an industry powerhouse, was losing his power. Ratings were waning for what was once one of the biggest shows on Australian television, and if we are to concede that Sunday is now the biggest trouble spot on Ten (so bad is their current attempt for Sunday ratings, Celebrity Dog School, I didn't bother to review it, because to anounce it's failure would be nothing short of redundant, considering how obvious that one was), then on one level, putting another troubled show in the middle of it is hardly an obvious move. Except, of course, the show's actual ratings now mean nothing, because what ended the last disappointing season of Rove Live?

Of course, you could now write the next part of this article yourself, but I'll refresh our memory, anyway. Sadly, Rove's wife, Belinda Emmet, lost her battle to cancer, ending the last season prematurely, and suspending this year's, until Rove was well enough to carry on. This put Rove immediately into the press, and cast him as a character in one of the Australian public's most compelling sagas - the triumph over hardship, and in particular, over the death of a loved one. And cancer is one of the most marketable hardships there is - unlike obscure diseases, it can be related to by almost every single one of us (who has not experienced, in some capacity, the battle of cancer?), and unlike diseases such as AIDS, there are no nagging moral complexities. Is it a morally bankrupt way of looking at the situation? Of course, it is. But welcome to mainstream TV. Rove isn't being handed the most difficult and important task for Ten in the coming months because his show was doing so wonderfully. It wasn't. And despite Mott's spin, they're not in any way putting him there to start small and build up (something that simply doesn't happen in mainstream television). Rove is being moved to Sunday nights because they know very well that we're all going to turn up, desperate voyeurs we are, to have our pressing questions answered.

Does Rove look sad? Will he discuss his plight? Does he look a little worn and torn, like a man who has drudged through the battle of grief? I think I see bags under his eyes. Poor fellow. How has Rove carried on?

And he will probably deliver. Not that Rove is himself now thinking in these terms - Rove has just lost the love of his life, and the tragic story that the network is now milking is undoubtedly a sincere one, on his part. Though it should be presumed that Rove is a very smart man, beyond performance, and understands production and marketing. He understands it enough, surely, to know what is behind his sudden bankability. I wonder how that makes him feel? Do you resist the chance because you know it comes from such a dark place? Do you bend over and let them exploit you, even if your new value is essentially a slap in the face to the reality of your life? I'm sure Rove would much prefer to be handed this job because he is such a talented performer, and because he is Australia's favourite son of comedy, regardless of his personal life. That isn't the case. I can't help but wonder how he has constructed this to himself. Of course, we'll never know. But I'll confess - I plan to turn up on the night to see if I can spot any clues. We'll all be there, together, reading into any little thing we can, waiting for the actual script to falter and for our hunger to be fed. I'll be looking for something different to most, but I'll still be looking. I will turn up to Ten on Sunday night, and I will be watching - alongside the rest of the country.

The only question yet to be answered is whether this will translate into a prolonged interest and success for Rove, which will then, as planned, translate into ratings for the other shows we are supposed to be drawn to around Rove (most notably, Ten's endangered reality television). We'll certainly be there on opening night, but for Rove to carry our interest, the horrible fact of the matter is that he will be required to hand us exactly what we want. If he doesn't mention the death of his wife - his struggle - and chooses to hold his head up without referring to it, he could be in trouble. Nobody is particularly interested in Rove Live anymore on its own merit (certainly not to the level needed to beat the big guns he is being pitted against), and left with just this as a drawcard, the whole clever idea could sink. Ten always knows how to get people there for the opening - Yasmin, Tench and Con Test all had strong openings (as did last year's Big Brother, pulling a mammoth opening night, only to fail to convince much of this audience to return) - but that's only step one. Step two is to get them to keep coming back. If Rove crafts himself as the triumphant lovable Aussie larrikin, rising from his ashes with comedy (Australians value laughing over crying, almost to the point of denial), then this could be the return of Rove as a strong icon of Australian television, and the interest could at least be sustained long enough for the whole thing to work.

It's a nasty roll of the dice. I quite like Rove, for all it's worth. I can't stand his lowbow comedy, beyond the need to analyse his Big Brother interviews (which presumably may not happen, this year, if he is slotted directly after the eviction), but I do have a soft spot for him, and I always imagined he was essentially a lovely guy. And I was fascinated to see how his personal life changed him, the crossroad it potentially gave him. Such struggles in life do affect us, and they don't mesh well with being in the middle one of the most morally corrupt businesses there is. I did see a change, last year, and I did feel as if Rove emanated a soft contempt for the world he symbolised. But what an unfortunate thing to now, so soon after Emmett's death, have that death so blatantly cashed in on. On his last show of 2006, Rove pleased me to no end, by confirming my suspicions with a swipe at Big Brother (putting it forward as a symbol of how messed up our current world is that it had been given another season). Oh, the irony, Mr McManus. Now, you're central to the survival of this very show. You're it's bedfellow, and a bait for the mob that must be won back to those cruel evictions. Seriously ironic.

 

The "all new" Rove will return to our screens on April fool's day. Expect many fools to rush in.