Ryan Seacrest Butt Of ‘Knock Knock Live’ Joke
Ryan Seacrest probably isn’t in a joking mood, but Knock Knock Live may end being one of the biggest jokes in Fox’s history.
After earning an abysmal 1.75 million viewers in the show’s debut last week, the series dropped even further in week two with only 1.6 million viewers. Despite having one of the top hosts in television history in Ryan Seascrest, the poor numbers resulted in a swift decision to drop the program from their summer lineup.
The show, which was emceed by Seacrest, was supposed to be a feel-good reality show with megawatt stars making appearances to surprise regular people at their homes. Instead, Ryan whiffed on this one as viewers appeared to not be home for this Fox television series.
Even guest appearances by Justin Bieber couldn’t attract viewers to the show, becoming the first reality TV flop for Ryan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT9LU0iRCWg
Theories abound as to why the series failed despite the show hailing from Dick Clark Productions and having Simon Fuller and Seacrest as executive producers. The primary reason Ryan and his show may not have succeeded? It played opposite of NBC’s rating king America’s Got Talent.
Despite reasons it may not have succeeded, publicity was not one of them. Seacrest and Knock Knock Live had an extremely active Twitter account despite its rookie status and had generated significant publicity with Bieber and David Beckham appearing alongside Ryan in the first two episodes.
.@RyanSeacrest and @justinbieber hanging out on stage! #KnockKnockLive pic.twitter.com/qs3KQikDup
— Knock Knock Live (@KnockKnockFOX) July 29, 2015
Seacrest and the summer fill-in series aren’t the only ones struggling to attract viewers this year. NBC’s Welcome to Sweden was cancelled on July 28 after attracting a 0.3 rating. And Ryan can boast that his show fared much better than Dates, The CW’s low-rated comedy that attracted only 500,000 viewers on average through its first six episodes. With ratings reaching new lows this summer, media analyst Brad Adgate suggests the trend of original programming replacing originals will continue to cause ratings to plummet lower.
“Every summer it seems like there’s a new threshold. The floor is really low. There’s a strategy now to run originals, not reruns, so networks are going to air the full orders whether something is a hit or not.”
To replace scheduled airings of Knock Knock Live, Fox is airing a one-hour repeat of The Last Man on Earth (which is not a documentary about Ryan Seacrest nor about the viewers of the cancelled show). The August 11 time slot will be split between repeats of Last Man and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
If Knock Knock Live had survived another episode, Meghan Trainor was set to appear alongside Ryan Seacrest.
[Image by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images]
