''America's Got Talent'' began airing season one in the
United Kingdom on
ITV2 on
22 June 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.
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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 will attend a
Las Vegas bootcamp, where they will 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, than 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.
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.
See Also: 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: . 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 .
- (Judges' choice, July 12): A musical group consisting of two brothers. Cole, age 20, plays guitar, and L.D., age 12, plays Harmonica .
- '''.
- (Judges' choice, July 20): An Acrobatics mixed pair performing hand-to-hand balancing and releases.
- (Viewers' choice, July 20): An A Cappella act, performing R&B songs with a hip hop beat.
- '''.
- (Judges' choice, August 2): A comedy/juggling act.
- (Viewers' choice, August 3): A family Irish step dancing/fiddling act.
- (Judges' choice, August 9): A clogging ensemble.
- (Viewers' choice, August 10): Clothes-changing magic act.
- (Viewers' choice, July 27): An 11 year old singer.
See Also: America's Got Talent (season 2)
After initially announcing in 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.
The finale of the season was shown Tuesday,
August 21 , 2007, and the results are shown below:
NBC announced in August 2007 that the network renewed the show for a third season, scheduled for summer 2008.
''The Hollywood Reporter'' vis Reuters (Aug. .6, 2007): "''Talent'', ''Comic'' get thumbs-up from NBC", by Kimberly Nordyke
In the audition phase, Morgan was usually fastest hitting his X (strike) button, expressing disapproval even when Brandy 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.
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. 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
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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
2006
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.
On the semifinal rounds in the second season, Morgan, with his new ability to be able to press buttons to intterupt an act, striked his X several times. Once for Kevin James, Kashif Memon, Popovich Comedy Pet Theater, Sideswipe, Jason Pritchett, and twice for the Duttons.
The performance shows are rated
TV-PG and the results shows are rated
TV-14 .
Ever since the show has debuted in 2006, its ratings have outpaced over every other broadcast of the night, and even, sometimes, of the week. Regular TV audiences total an average of usually 10 million a night, giving NBC an average 6.0/10 rating every Tuesday, over
CBS ,
ABC , and FOX. Total ratings have overrated
FOX 's hit reality show,
So You Think You Can Dance , which airs on Wednesday, by over one million viewers. In the summer of 2006, ''Talent'' was summer's most watched TV program, and it is likely that the show will become summer 2007's winner as well.
; is the host, with
Dannii Minogue ,
Red Symons and
Tom Burlinson judging the performances. It has a top prize of
AU$ 250,000 (Jul 2007, approximately £107,000; US$220,000). Bonnie Anderson was the first winner of the grand prize.
; debuted ''
Britain's Got Talent '' (however, the original idea for America's Got Talent was a British invention - as
Paul O'Grady did a pilot for
ITV , however it wasn't picked up until after the American version of the show was broadcast). The series started on
9 June ,
2007 with
Piers Morgan ,
Simon Cowell , and
Amanda Holden as judges, and
Ant & Dec as hosts of the show. The top prize is at least
£ 100,000 (Jul 2007, approximately US$205,000). In addition the winner will perform at the
Royal Variety Performance in front of
Her Majesty The Queen .
Paul Potts , winner of the first series also earns a recording contract. http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds35336.html..
; 150,000 top prize (Jul 2007, approximately US$205,000) was recently won by a
Popper /
B-boy "Salah". The show is set to return sometime in 2007.
; 2007, ''Aqui Há Talento'' (''There's Talent Here'') premiered on public channel
RTP , hosted by Sílvia Alberto (former hostess ofthe ''
Pop Idol '' and ''
Strictly Come Dancing '' Portuguese spinoffs) and judged by actors Joaquim Monchique and Sílvia Rizzo and producer Paulo Dias. The top prize is €75,000.
; , the most watched Russian channel. There are also three judges and X buzzers, and is hosted by Garik Morterasian (a comedian originally from Armenia). The judges are
Iosif Kobzon (a Russian singer),
Tatyana Tolstaya (a Russian author), and
Alexander Maslyakov (host of
KVN , the Russian humor show). There are also semifinals and finals. The prize is 1,000,000
Rubles (Jul 2007, approximately US$39,000).
; . It is hosted by actress and TV presenter Sofia Aliberti, and with judges from Greek show business Ilias Psinakis, Vaggelis Perris and Matthilda Maggira. It will likely not only feature Greek nationals, but also contestants from the Greek Diaspora. The prize is €150,000.
; . Dré Steemans ("Felice", who also hosts the current Belgian version of ''
Deal Or No Deal '') and Ann van Elsen host. On the jury are Paul Jambers, Martine Prenen, and Gert Verhulst. Prize is €50,000.
;
Netherlands : The Dutch version called ''Bijna Beroemd'' (''Almost Famous'') and is broadcasted by NRCV on Nederland 1 and hosted by Jochem Van Gelder and Jetkste Van der Elsen. Grand prize is €100,000.
; '' airs on
TV4 (Sweden) . The host is Peppe Eng. The jury is
Bert Karlsson ,
Hanna Hedlund and
Tobbe Blom . The prize is 1,000,000
Swedish Kronor (Jul 2007, approximately £73,000; US$148,000; AU$174,000).
; . The format is similar to the US version, but new competitors compete each episode. Each winner gets 100,000
Chinese Yuan .
; , one of the main German TV stations, has anounced ''Das Supertalent''. The prize will be €100,000. Details concerning host and jury are not intimated yet.
RTL Television is the main broadcasting arm of
RTL Group , which also owns the "Got Talent" production company
FremantleMedia .
; debuted their adaptation of the show, named ''הדבר הגדול הבא'' (Ha'Davar Ha'Gadol Ha'Ba = ''The Next Big Thing'').
Noa Tishby is the host. The prize is
₪ 500,000 (Jul 2007, approximately US$125,000).
; . The show is simply called ''Talent'' and it's aired on
Nelonen . The main prize is €30,000.
