The Sked: Tuesday Ratings — America’s Got Talent Sags

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NBC held on to win another Tuesday last night, with a soft 2.1 Adult 18-49 rating from 8-11 pm (down from a 2.3 last week and the fairly routine 2.2-2.3 before the Olympics started).  America’s Got Talent remains the highest-rated show on the night, but it drifted down to a 2.5 from 8-10 pm last night in the fast nationals (very possibly going up to still soft 2.6 in the official nationals).  In the post-July 4 period this summer, America’s Got Talent has not been able to break out above a 3 rating, and last night’s episode was particularly low — perhaps hurt by the simply awful episode the week before.

America’s Got Talent Tuesday episode ratings

2012 (July 10-Aug 21): 2.8 2.6 2.7 (Olympics) 2.8 2.5

2011 (July 5-Aug 16): 4.5 4.0 3.2 3.1 3.1 3.0 2.9

The first episode back after the Olympic hiatus was the YouTube winners episode, a collection of incredibly untalented hacks that somehow wormed their way on to live national TV because of the YouTube voting process.  Feast your eyes on one of the worst stand up performances in television history.  That level of talent, combined with the utter lack of compelling characters to root for as in years past, makes for a show in a nosedive.    The final four weeks in 2011 AGT bounced between a 3.1 and 3.3 before ending its Tuesday run with a 3.8 on September 13.  This summer’s final few weeks will struggle to get to a 2.9 rating.  Next summer is primed for a complete changing of the guard at the top of network reality.

NBC finished the night with repeats of Go On (1.4) at 10 pm and Animal Practice (1.0) at 10:30.  A big drop from the lead-in at 9:30 pm but acceptable sampling for two comedies whose real tests will come when original episodes have to face real competition across all the networks.

FOX dropped to a 1.9 for the evening.  A 1.3 rating for a repeat MasterChef at 8 pm is lower than FOX has been used to with original episodes of Hell’s Kitchen or Hotel Hell, but an original MasterChef turned in a reliable 2.4 rating at 9 pm.

CBS ended up a little above a 1 rating for the night, while ABC was below the 1 rating level.  CBS repeat dramas did their usual rating (NCIS 1.2 and NCIS: LA and Mentalist each 1.1).  In contrast, ABC comedy repeats ranged between a 0.6 for Don’t Trust the B– in Apt 23 and a 0.8 for Middle, Last Man Standing and Happy Endings.  NY Med, which concludes tonight on a special night, averaged a mediocre 1.0 rating (in the middle of its 0.6 to 1.2 range so far this summer).