Fox Yanks 'Knock Knock Live'
By Lacey Rose
Knock Knock is no longer.
Two weeks into the unscripted series’ ill-fated run, Fox has opted to pull the plug. The Ryan Seacrest-hosted wish-fulfillment series bowed to a 0.6 ratings and 1.75 million viewers July 21, one of the network’s lowest series debuts ever. Week two, which included a Justin Bieber cameo, scored a 0.5 in the coveted demo, with an even more dismal 1.6 million total viewers.
Working against the series, which hailed from previous Seacrest collaborators Dick Clark Productions andSimon Fuller’s XIX Entertainment: a lack of circulation for Fox’s low-rated summer schedule and a time-slot rival in NBC reality juggernaut America’s Got Talent on NBC. To be sure, Fox’s other unscripted additions –Bullseye, Boom, Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader and Home Free – have failed to break out either.
Seacrest, Fuller, Michael Herwick, Allen Shapiro, Mike Mahan, Mark Bracco, Stijn Bakkers and Nicolle Yaron had served as executive producers on the live event series, which seemed to fit squarely into Fox TV Group chairmen Dana Walden and Gary Newman’s stated plan to shift Fox’s reality brand toward more aspirational fare. The pair recently renewed MasterChef, and announced in May that the forthcoming season of American Idol will be its last.
In place of Knock Knock, an hour-long Last Man On Earth repeat will air next Tuesday. Subsequent weeks will see replays of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Last Man.
