After One Season: Rtl Cancels Knossi

Bad odds are crucial

By switching to RTL, Jens Knossalla aka König Knossi made the leap from Twitch into the television landscape in January. To moderate the late night show daily freshly roasted, produced by Stefan Raab, the Baden-Württemberg native even gave up his passionate and extreme live casino streams. But after only 40 episodes, the end of the show was announced.

According to RTL, there will be no continuation of the show either on TV or online. Daily freshly roasted is a TVNOW original, which was also brought to free TV - a season was planned and it should stay that way. Everyone involved, including Knossi, did a good job. At the moment we are in a testing phase for new show ideas and we are now rushing into new projects full of enthusiasm.

That's the official statement from RTL, but behind the scenes the poor ratings also seem to have played a big role in the decision. They recently experimented with different broadcast times, but the number of viewers is said to have regularly been under 600,000. For comparison : a program like RTL Aktuell regularly attracts over 3 million viewers to the television. The last issue of daily freshly roasted runs on May 18th.

Jens Knossalla, born in Baden-Württemberg in 1986, was already active as a TV presenter and poker commentator for PokerStars. However, no format brought him as much fame as his casino streaming on Twitch. Knossi broadcast this several times a week. The channel TheRealKnossi has over 1.5 million followers, making it the third most followed German-language Twitch channel. Knossi also has 1.19 million subscribers on YouTube. His own shows are also shown on his channels, most recently featuring celebrities such as Sido and Pietro Lombardi. With the Late Night Show and the collaboration with Stefan Raab, Knossi says a dream came true.

Image change caused a shitstorm

The broadcaster RTL thought very highly of Knossalla because he hosted a highly successful test episode of the show last November. The episode with Knossi was by far the most successful in 2020, which is why it was decided to hire him as a permanent presenter. Since his withdrawal from the world of Live Casino Games and his change in image, Knossi's own community has turned against him.

The former gambler has recently received regular hate comments: Knossi's entertainment value is a thing of the past, wrote one user, and another called him a poor man's Stefan Raab. Knossi showed was recently shocked by this - he didn't know why people suddenly hated him so much. However, one reason for this could be that his own community did not buy his change in image.

Accusation of hypocrisy

Although Knossi was still gambling for large sums of money in the old fashion in December, he declared in January that he was plagued by remorse - he could no longer reconcile his already widely criticized gambling streams with himself. In the future, he wants to act as a role model and prevent young people from emulating his offensive style of play, the streaming star said in a statement on his YouTube channel.

Fans and critics don't buy Knossi's sudden remorse. Many viewers thought they sensed hypocrisy and expressed the suspicion that Knossi was only discontinuing his streams firstly to get a contract with RTL and secondly to avoid restrictions imposed by YouTube.

Another point that brought Knossi a lot of criticism is his involvement with Kaufland. As a result of his RTL contract, the supermarket chain had appointed the King of the Internet as an advertising ambassador under the motto King of Kaufland. He was seen wearing a crown in various advertisements between February and March. Knossi followed in the footsteps of pop star Michael Wendler, who over the last few months has attracted attention less through music than through conspiracy theories and is now a red flag for every marketing agency.

What's next for Knossi?

The end at RTL undoubtedly marks a crack in Knossi's career ladder. A return to gambling seems unlikely: especially because platforms like YouTube are constantly tightening their guidelines regarding gambling. One reason for this is the increasing criticism of gambling streams from addiction researchers. These would increase the affinity for gambling among adolescents.

Nevertheless, Knossi wants to continue with streams - but away from gambling: Together with his friend Sido, Knossi recently announced the Medieval Camp 2021IGT. Schascha Hellinger and Many Marc will also be there. The medieval camp is scheduled to be broadcast from a castle from May 28th to 30th, 2021. They want to receive many guests there and play various knight games. It remains to be seen whether Knossi can build on previous successes.

After one season: RTL cancels Knossi