Despite new judge Gabrielle Union issuing her first ever Golden Buzzer to 22-year-old singer Kodi Lee in a heartwarming moment, “America’s Got Talent” season 14 delivered one of the series’ slowest ever starts in the ratings.
The premiere won Tuesday night with a 1.7 rating in the key 18-49 demographic and 9.74 million total viewers, however, that tally represents one of the competition series’ lowest ever ratings debuts to date. For comparison, that’s down 34% on the season 13 premiere which garnered a 2.5 and just over 12 million total viewers back in the summer of 2018, while the season 12 premiere yielded similar figures with a 2.7 rating and 12.3 million total viewers.
With a lower “America’s Got Talent” lead in than NBC would have hoped, the network debuted another unscripted series in “Songland” on Tuesday night. The new series, which is produced by former “Voice” judge Adam Levine and sees renowned music producers evaluating and reworking aspiring songwriters’ original material, delivered a 1.2 rating in 18-49 and 5.85 million total viewers. Those figures were easily enough to claim victory in the 10 p.m. slot (the competition was “Blood & Treasure” on CBS which scored a 0.5 and the finale of “1969” on ABC which scored a 0.6), and represent a solid summer debut, however, NBC would likely have been looking for a stronger first performance from the show.
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The “America’s Got Talent,” “Songland” one-two helped NBC to a handy overall victory on Tuesday night. The Peacock registered a 1.5 average rating across the night, followed by ABC with a 0.8, Fox a 0.7 and CBS with a 0.6.