‘America’s Got Talent’ Ratings Hit 2-Year High

The night after the country celebrated its 240th birthday, NBC’s America’s Got Talent brushed aside original programming offered by broadcast competitors to dominate Tuesday primetime with its largest overall crowd since 2011.

In addition to clocking 12.6 million viewers, the 8-10 PM talent competition show also matched AGT’s two-year high in the demo (2.6 rating). That 12.6M is the show’s biggest overall haul since the September 14 season finale crowd of 14.4M in 2011.

Last night’s results were two-tenths of a rating point higher in the demo, and 2M overall viewers better than same night last year.

AGT dominated the first hour of primetime amid a sea of reruns including ABC’s The Middle (0.7, 3.4M) and Black-ish (0.6, 2.6M), CBS’ NCIS (0.8, 6.8M), Fox’s Hotel Hell (0.7, 2.0M) and the CW’s The Flash (0.2, 928K).

At 9 PM, AGT rebuffed ABC’s Uncle Buck season finale (1.0, 3.3M), CBS’ original Zoo (0.8, 5M), as well as CW’s Containment (0.2, 820K) and a repeat of Fox’s Coupled (0.2, 820K). Uncle Buck’s wrap-up put ABC in second place in its slot, edging out Zoo.

NBC’s Maya & Marty (1.0, 4.5M) tumbled off its pumped-up AGT lead-in, though it retained 100% of its most recent telecast’s demo ratings, despite last week’s pre-emption, and its overall audience climbed by 313K viewers compared with most recent airing. But M&M only tied ABC’s To Tell the Truth (1.0, 4.4M) for tops in the demo in its 10 PM time slot. And CBS’ NCIS: New Orleans repeat (0.7, 5.2M) took the top spot in overall audience.

AGT-fueled NBC won the night (2.1, 9.9M), followed by ABC’s 0.9 (3.6M), CBS’ 0.8 (5.7M), Fox’s 0.5 (1.6M), and CW’s 0.2 (874K).