Ratings
The show has sometimes struggled in the ratings. This was most obvious in the ratings for the final show of 2005, which was broadcast on 22 November. The show gave away six cars, and had media heavyweights Bert Newton, Jerry Seinfeld and Kath & Kim as guests. The show rated 19th for the day, with only 797,000 viewers nationwide.
On 16 May 2006, the ratings peaked over a million for the first time since 2002 when 1,040,762 viewers watched nationwide. This episode involved an intruder entering the Big Brother house live during the show. The final episode for 2006 attracted only 700,000 viewers nationally. This wasn't intended to be the final episode, but eventuated as the result of the death of McManus' wife Belinda Emmett.
The first episode of the revamped series, which began 1 April 2007, attracted 1,693,000 viewers nationwide, and was the highest rating program for the day. For the second episode of the season which aired on 8 April, viewership fell to 999,000. The third episode was shown on 22 April achieving around 1,073,000 viewers. Since then, the show has consistently rated above 1,000,000 viewers nationally.
Rove's final show for 2007 featured then Leader of the Opposition Kevin Rudd, as well as Australian Greens leader Bob Brown, comedian Jerry Seinfeld and actor Jason Donovan. It was watched by 1.368 million viewers. The season premiere for 2008, broadcast on 30 March, only attracted 777,000 viewers.
855,000 viewers watched the 2009 return of Rove, up nearly 100,000 viewers on the previous year. Ratings frequently average 800,000–1 million viewers.
Read more about this topic: Rove (TV series)