America’s Got Talent’s Rating Plunges, Howard Stern’s Entry as Judge to Blame?

America’s Got Talent’s Rating Plunges, Howard Stern’s Entry as Judge to Blame?

Perhaps America isn’t quite ready for Howard Stern as an AGT judge.

Ratings for Monday's season premiere of "America's Got Talent" hit low compared with that of last year’s, according to Nielsen. The first episode with shock-jock Stern, who took over as a judge for Piers Morgan, slipped by one-third, to 10.3-million total viewers in the early data. Joining the judges’ table are the returnees Howie Mandel and Sharon Osbourne.

We can recall that Howard Stern’s return raised ire on the Parents Television Council, which sent letters of protest to 91 companies that previously have bought ad time during “America’s Got Talent.”

The letters urged advertisers to spend their money used in advertising elsewhere “unless and until Stern's conduct consistently reflects and respects the time, place and manner of an 8 p.m. broadcast television program.”

One of the PTC’s complaints was, accordingly, Stern’s lack of valid judging experience. They wrote, “Stern’s reputation for sleaze and misogyny is well known; and to our knowledge his only previous judging experience consisted of looking at insecure, naked young women and telling them whether or not they were hot enough to pose for Playboy.”

The rating results don’t look great, especially after NBC extensively promoted Stern's arrival with ads, promos and wide media interviews.

But in fairness, NBC decided, perhaps unwisely, to open "America's Got Talent" early this year, rather than after the season was officially over which means that the talent show had to whack it out against tough competition, rather than the usual weak reality shows and mix of repeats that it usually had no trouble gliding past.  It's likely that "America’s Got Talent" will establish itself once the summer slowdown occurs.

Still, it's probably not the news that the long-suffering NBC was expecting.

Posted by Kade Quinn on Wednesday May 16 2012, 4:35 AM EST. Ref: Yahoo. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Entertainment, Featured News. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0