RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘America’s Got Talent’ Steady, ‘Bachelor In Paradise’ Even, CW’s Maroon 5 Special Soft

The last days of summer aren’t letting up when it comes to reality TV. While Fox and CBS were all encores last night, unscripted was in the ring last night on NBC and ABC and on The CW, in a way. The heavyweight was of course America’s Got Talent (2.1/7). Heading toward the Season 9 finale on September 17, the first round of this year’s Semifinals kicked off with the return of four acts that had been previously given the boot. With three of the four onstage on Tuesday the point was to spice things up (Sorry Mel B) and it did a little bit with last night’s 2-hour live show bopping up 5% from its August 19 broadcast. Besides being the highest-rated and most watched show of the night with an audience of 9.40 million, AGT last night matched its own best Tuesday result since July 29, a potential good sign ratingswise moving toward the finale. AGT’s lead-in freshman Food Fighters (1.1/4) had a good night too with another week on the upward move. The 8 PM Adam Richman-hosted show saw a 10% rise among adults 18-49 from last week. NBC won the night with a 1.8/6 rating and 7.84 million viewers.

There was a bit of NBC on The CW last night as The Voice’s Adam Levine showed up in his other job as the lead singer of Maroon 5. Of course, while the band played a bunch of numbers from its new album, the numbers were expectantly nowhere near Voice levels. Actually, the 8 PM 1-hour iHeartRadio Album Release Party With Maroon 5 (0.2/1) was down a whooping 33% from the last such special of July 9’s 90-minute iHeartRadio Ultimate Pool Party. Viewershipwise, the special pulled in just 730,000.

Over on ABC, there was also unscripted competition but it was superficially more about romance than the pure victory of AGT. Night 2 of a special Bachelor In Paradise (1.3/5) saw two rose ceremonies and what appeared to be a threesome. It also saw Tuesday night’s show even with Monday’s broadcast in both the key demo and viewers. Unfortunately for lead-out 20/20 (0.8/3) the ratings ground did not hold. The part 2 of the news mag’s from Hell special got closer to the fire with an 11% drop from last week.