MUMBAI: Emulating the likes of Jay Leno is easier said than done. Former tennis player John McEnroe has failed to repeat his on court success on air. CNBC has decided to discontinue his talk show after it aired for just six months.     

The show debuted in July. CNBC however faced with a huge slump in ratings announced to employees that the hour-long show would stop taping by the end of the year. McEnroe, averaged about 174,000 viewers in its first week on the air compared with about 200,000 drawn by its predecessor, a news programme. On the Fox News Channel, during the same hour as McEnroe’s show, Greta Van Susteren drew an average of 1.8 million viewers.

The show drew an average of 75,000 people a night - and sometimes got an audience of zero in the official TV ratings system. The former tennis star has meanwhile blamed the show's failure on the lack of promotional and marketing activity.