Rove McManus has found himself embroiled in an embarrassing scandal surrounding his big return to TV.
The radio star’s new show Saturday Night Rove debuted to mediocre ratings last month, and in a bid to drum up support for the show, it appears as though Network Ten have been caught out “lying to viewers with fake fan reviews”, according to TV Blackbox.
WATCH: Saturday Night Rove kicks off with brutal swipe at Karl Stefanovic
The publication noted that Ten had been airing a promo for Rove’s show containing rave reviews from fans that had been taken out of context.
For example, one tweet by social media user @RVenusaur
promoted by show producers appeared to read: “Amazing… FUNNY !”
However, the full tweet actually said: “#SaturdayNightRove Soo I kinda liked it, it’s not amazing but it’s funny and can we get some musical performances please?”
Another seemingly positive tweet was promoted as saying: “ ‘ROVE! Fantastic to have you back!!” when in actual fact, social media user @TdwhiteWhite’s words had been taken completely out of context, with the full tweet reading: “Rove, it’s fantastic to have you back but you need to listen to your loyal fans and change the format [of the show] please.”
Network Ten has attempted to clear up the mix-up, releasing a statement to TV Blackbox.
“The inclusion of these tweets was human error. We have updated our processes to ensure it doesn’t happen again,” a spokesperson clarified.
The announcement that Rove was returning to our screens came late last year, some ten years after the media star’s last successful series, Rove Live, finished up after a nine year run on the network, in November 2009.
“’We have officially brought back Saturday night. It was gone and now it’s back. You’re welcome,” Rove said in a statement to The Project last October.
Despite being the lowest rating of all eight Pilot Week shows, due, in part, to its difficult slot, Rove said the Network had decided to back the fledgling show off the back of strong social media support.
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