McEnroe talk show scrapped

From a TV standpoint, it was a straight-sets loss: John McEnroe’s talk show was axed by US channel CNBC, after barely six months on the air.

McEnroe may have had more people watch his tennis matches – in person – than watched his talk show some nights.

The show was averaging 75,000 viewers a night, less than half attracted by business programming in the time slot before McEnroe went on the air. On some nights, it did not get a Nielsen Media Research rating at all, meaning the audience was too small to measure.

It will be replaced next month by The Big Idea, a talk show with advertising executive Donny Deutsch as host, which has run on CNBC occasionally as a special.