America's Got Talent

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America's Got Talent
Format Reality talent show
Created by Simon Cowell
Ken Warwick
 Cécile Frot-Coutaz
Jason Raff
Judges Piers Morgan
David Hasselhoff
Brandy Norwood (2006)
Sharon Osbourne (2007-Present)
Country of origin United States
No. of episodes 28
Production
Executive
producer(s)		 Simon Cowell
Ken Warwick
Running time Varies
Broadcast
Original channel NBC
Picture format 480i (NTSC)
Original run June 21, 2006 – present
External links
Official website
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

America's Got Talent is an American reality television series on the NBC television network. It is a talent show that features singers, dancers, magicians, comedians and other performers of all ages competing for the advertised top prize of US$1 million. The show debuted in June 2006 for the summer television season.

The show concept can be traced back to the British talent contest Opportunity Knocks, which started as a radio programme in 1949 before moving to television in 1956. Among its significant features were that it gave an opportunity to talented amateurs or unknown performers, with the results decided by a public vote.[1]

The format was sold by Simon Cowell after he originally produced the show that was to have been called "Paul O'Grady's Got Talent" (as can be seen by the application for a Trademark for this name at [1] ) - but was postponed from 2005 until 2007, and when it was eventually launched in 2007 it was called, "Britain's Got Talent" due to the fact that Paul O'Grady defected from ITV to Channel 4. Unlike the British version, Cowell does not appear as a judge due to the conditions of his American Idol contract.

America's Got Talent began airing season one in the United Kingdom on ITV2 on 22 June 2007, TV3 Ireland in Ireland on July 2007 and in New Zealand on Prime Television New Zealand on 9 July 2007.

NBC has announced that America's Got Talent has been renewed for a third season. [2]

Contents

[edit] Selection/elimination process

For the audition round, each of the three judges has a button in front of them that they can press when they do not want the act to continue; in season one, the button rings an electronic bell and a large red X with the judge's name lights up over the stage. A louder buzzer indicates the third judge's button was pressed, and the contestant's performance is terminated. In season two, only a buzzer is heard when a judge hits his/her button. If all three judges hit their X in season 2, the performer is illuminated in a lonely blue spotlight, indicating that they've been struck out. This is not as significant as it might be, since the judges occasionally cheat and press one another's buttons to abort even if a consensus of disapproval has not been reached. Then, the judges are asked whether the contestant should continue to the next round, with the approval of two out of three judges required. The button voting is not final, and occasionally a supporting judge can talk a disapproving one into switching sides. From there, the contestant is either rejected or passed to the next round of performance. The process is similar to the classic spoof amateur show The Gong Show, except that an act was ended by just one judge on Gong with no deliberations to follow.

The acts who pass the auditions then attend a Las Vegas bootcamp, where they have a chance to perfect their craft. At this point, acts are divided into 2 groups, "music", and "variety". The music acts consist of singers and instrument players. The "variety" group consists of other acts. The "music" acts performs first, followed by the "variety" acts. Each act will perform for 3 minutes, and their performance will not be terminated, as the judges have no buttons to press. After each group has finished, the judges will split the groups into lines, either a "yes" line, or a "no" line. The ones who the judges said yes to will go to the short list of 35 acts. The acts which the judges have said no to will go home. After that, the judges will cut the short list of 35 to 20 final acts. In the semifinal episodes, the 20 acts will be first split into 2 groups of 10. America will vote and eliminate 5 out of the first group, then 5 out of the second. The remaining 10 will perform head to head in the next round, where the field will be narrowed each week.

[edit] Voting in the Semifinal

Unlike in Season 1, where there is a judges' choice, and a viewers' choice, the voting is completely handed over to the viewers. There will be no checks, but just Xs. The judges may press the Xs if they do not want the act to continue and they may also comment on acts.

[edit] Season 1

Main article: America's Got Talent (season 1)

In June 2006, NBC announced the new show. The audition tour took place in June. Auditions were held in the following locations: Los Angeles, California, New York City, New York, Chicago, Illinois, and Atlanta, Georgia. Some early ads for the show implied that the winning act would also headline a show at a casino, possibly in Las Vegas; however, this was replaced with $1,000,000 due to concerns of minors playing in Las Vegas, should one become a champion. More than 12 million viewers watched the season premiere (which is more than American Idol got during its premiere back in 2002). The two-hour broadcast was the night's most-watched program on U.S. television and the highest-rated among viewers aged 18 to 49 (the prime-time audience that matters most to advertisers), Nielsen Media Research reported.[2]. On the season finale, there was an unaired segment that was scheduled to appear after Aly and AJ. The segment featured Tom Green dressing in a parrot costume, and squawking with a live parrot, to communicate telepathically. Green then proceeded to fly up above the audience, shooting confetti streamers out of his costume onto the crowd below.

In season one, the show was hosted by Regis Philbin and judged by actor David Hasselhoff, singer Brandy, and journalist Piers Morgan.

[edit] Winner

  • Bianca Ryan (Viewers' choice, July 27): An 11 year old singer.

[edit] Finalists

  • The Millers (Judges' choice, July 12): A musical group consisting of two brothers. Cole, age 20, plays guitar, and L.D., age 12, plays harmonica.
  • Taylor Ware (Viewers' choice, July 13): An 11 year old yodelist.
  • Realis (Judges' choice, July 20): An acrobatics mixed pair performing hand-to-hand balancing and releases.
  • At Last (Viewers' choice, July 20): An a cappella act, performing R&B songs with a hip hop beat.
  • Rappin' Granny (real name: Vivian Smallwood) (Judges' choice, July 26): A 73 year old rapper.
  • The Passing Zone (Judges' choice, August 2): A comedy/juggling act.
  • Celtic Spring (Viewers' choice, August 3): A family Irish step dancing/fiddling act.
  • All That (Judges' choice, August 9): A clogging ensemble.
  • Quick Change (Viewers' choice, August 10): Clothes-changing magic act.

[edit] Season 2

Main article: America's Got Talent (season 2)

After initially announcing in May 2006 that the second season of America's Got Talent would debut in January 2007 at 8 PM on Sunday nights, with no separate results show, the network has changed its mind and pushed the show back to the summer, where the first season had great success. This move will keep the show out of indirect competition with American Idol, which has a similar premise and is more popular. In AGT's place, another reality-based talent show, Grease: You're The One That I Want, began airing on Sunday nights in the same timeslot on NBC beginning in January.[3] In March 2007, NBC announced tabloid talk show host Jerry Springer would succeed Philbin as host,[4] with Sharon Osbourne (already a judge on Cowell's UK show The X Factor) succeeding Brandy as a judge. This means the show, ironically, has two British judges and one American one.

The second season has no results show, replaced by results on the performance show night instead; in addition, each Tuesday broadcast was repeated (along with The Singing Bee episode that followed the 90-minute editions of AGT) by NBC the following Saturday.

The finale of the season was shown Tuesday, August 21, 2007, and the results are shown below:

[edit] Winner

[edit] Finalists

[edit] Season 3

Main article: America's Got Talent (season 3)

NBC announced in August 2007 that the network had renewed the show for a third season. Auditions were and still on going in Charlotte, Nashville, Orlando, New York, Dallas, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Chicago from January to April. Sharon Osbourne, Piers Morgan and David Hasselhoff returned as judges - as seen on Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway. Jerry Springer also returned as host. It will also be shown in the United Kingdom on ITV2. Oprah Winfrey announced on Monday March 17, 2008 that the new season premieres on NBC on June 24, 2008. Later, the premiere date was moved up one week to Tuesday June 17, 2008.

[edit] Judging styles

 This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can (April 2008).

In the audition phase, Morgan was usually fastest hitting his X (strike) button, expressing disapproval even when Brandy/Osbourne and Hasselhoff did not (loosely mirroring Simon Cowell's disapproval of the audition when Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson did not on American Idol). On several occasions after pressing his strike button, he reached over and pressed Brandy's button, and on occasion, stood up to press Hasselhoff's button, singlehandedly stopping the act. Occasionally, Hasselhoff would be the last one who had not hit the X button, letting the act still go on despite Brandy and Morgan having long hit their buttons (Brandy and Morgan attempted a few times to hit Hasselhoff's button to end the act, a couple of times succeeding, but Hasselhoff always tried to block them). Also, when burlesque dancer Michelle L'amour started to strip on one episode, Morgan and Hasselhoff tried to hold back Brandy as she tried to strike their buttons. Morgan will often strike his button to see if the noise would break the performer's concentration, even if he approves of the act. For example, when Liang, a Chinese acrobat, started to put her hand which was holding balanced plates on a stick under her leg, Morgan buzzed her. In the end, Liang ended up crying and Hasselhoff had to go up and hug her.

When Osbourne replaced Brandy in Season 2, she became the judge who usually takes the longest time to hit the button (except in the case of musical acts, in which case she sometimes buzzes them well before Morgan and Hasselhoff). Judges hitting other judges' buttons became a rare occurrence, although Morgan did hit Osbourne's button once in order to end an act he disliked.

Unlike in Season 1, the panel of judges have allowed fewer children in, possibly in reaction to Bianca Ryan's win.[citation needed] Piers was usually the first to buzz the child acts, although he did like a few, including 14-year old Julienne Irwin, and The Rascals. Sometimes David would follow, but Sharon usually would let the acts finish. Sharon would also constructively criticize the children, while Piers would say their act wasn't worth a million dollars, and David said they weren't ready yet.

On the first semifinal show, after the performance of the Millers, Morgan suggested that the younger brother L.D. should sack his fairly average brother Cole if he wanted to be a superstar, driving L.D. to tears. Nonetheless, the Millers were put through to the finals by the three judges. On the fourth semifinal show, Morgan found fault with the family group Celtic Spring, saying that the group should "sack mum, dad, and [the] little brother," in another case of unequal talent. The youngest brother and sister cried, and the rest of the siblings stood their ground, saying their mom and dad were part of their backup. The viewers put Celtic Spring through to the finals.

In the audition stages of Season 2, the trend continued with The Duttons, consisting of 14 performers from one family. Morgan suggested that if they kept the children off the stage, they could be a winning act. On the other hand, when rapper Abenz was eliminated by the judges, the trio invited backup singer Byrain Winbush to return to the stage for his own audition (he advanced to the second round despite the short notice).

On the wild card show, Morgan criticized the two members of David & Dania - Quick Change, "Are you deaf? Are you dumb? Or are you just so arrogant about that act that you think that's all you have to do?" David responded with a warning not to call him dumb, and pointed out that they were the only act of their kind on the show. Dania later left the stage in tears, and said backstage that his comments were hurtful. Once again, viewers voted for this group to perform in the finals. USA Today said that these moments were among the worst in the show.[5]

On the second semifinal show, the judges were unable to reach a unanimous decision for their choice by the end of the episode. On the results show, Morgan revealed that he refused to add a third singing act to the two that had already made it to the finals (The Millers and Taylor Ware), stating "this is not American Idol" and he "wanted a more diverse group of acts for the final". The judges chose Realis as a result, and the viewers chose another singing act, At Last, to go through.

During the semifinal rounds of the second season, Morgan, with his new ability to be able to press buttons to interrupt an act, struck his X several times.

[edit] Ratings

The performance shows are rated TV-PG and the results shows are rated TV-14.

Ever since the show first aired in 2006, its ratings have outpaced every other broadcast of the night, and occasionally, of the week. Regular TV audiences often total an average of 10 million a night, giving NBC an average 6.0/10 rating every Tuesday, higher than that of CBS, ABC, and FOX. Total ratings have exceeded by over one million viewers those of FOX's hit reality show, So You Think You Can Dance, which airs on Wednesday. In 2007, the show was the summer's most watched TV program, averaging 12.0 million viewers per night on its second season[citation needed].

[edit] International spinoffs

Further information: Got Talent series

[edit] International Broadcasts

America's Got Talent airs in the United Kingdom on ITV2.

In the Middle East, America's Got Talent airs on MBC4.

In Norway, America's Got Talent's first season aired on TV 2 in January and February 2008, as an introduction to the Norwegian version Norske talenter.

In the Philippines, America's Got Talent airs on ETC 2nd Avenue

In Hong Kong, America's Got Talent airs on TVB Pearl.

In Denmark, America's Got Talent airs on TV 2.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Press Your Buttons Now! - We look back at talent shows of yesteryear.. BBC. Retrieved on 2007-05-13.
  2. ^ Reuters
  3. ^ NBC’s mid-season 2006–07 schedule
  4. ^ Popular Television Talk-Show Host Jerry Springer Named Host of NBC's 'America'S Got Talent'
  5. ^ Lopez, Korina. "'America's Got Talent'", USA Today, 21 August 2006

[edit] External links

v • d • e
America's Got Talent
Seasons
1 · 2 · 3
Hosts
Judges
Winners
Runners-up
Other alumni
Other
Host and judges names shown in italics are no longer a part of the show.