NBC’s giant leap: 'Talent' tops, yet drops

Making its Wednesday debut, NBC's "America's Got Talent" easily led the night and gave the network its best performance in the slot since January.

On the downside, the series (10.1 million average viewers, 2.7 preliminary adults 18 to 49 and an 8 share, according to Nielsen Media Research) posted its lowest number since 2006.

NBC is emphasizing that last night and Tuesday's post-Olympic "Talent" ratings drops should be heavily factored against some extenuating circumstances – the show was off the air during the Games, and is now running earlier at 8 p.m., plus is now running twice a week.

But those circumstances were all part of NBC's strategy to, if anything, increase the show's viewership. The network stretched the order for its top-rated summer reality hit to an unprecedented 30.5 hours, then attempted to leap it over the Olympics like Evel Knievel jumping the Grand Canyon. The gap, the 8 p.m. start time and the weekly double down ... those are all by design, banking on heavy promotion during the Olympics to ramp up interest in the show. (It should be noted here that ABC's non-serialized "Wipeout" likewise attempted to cross the Olympic divide and fell to a season low.)

NBC benefits from the moves regardless because it's winning Tuesdays and Wednesdays during a difficult post-summer/pre-fall broadcast wasteland, with "Talent" significantly improving its time periods. Yet the network's original hope was that this bold scheduling strategy would rocket "Talent" to new heights, not merely squeeze a few more eggs from its Golden Goose of summer (NBC co-chain Ben Silverman told Bill Carter earlier this month that "Talent" is easily expandable -- "we can get a ton of hours out of it" -- and producer Simon Cowell predicted the show could hit 20 million viewers).

The plan echoes NBC's attempts to super-size seasons of "The Office" (with longer seasons and a spin-off) "My Name Is Earl," "The Biggest Loser" (whose ratings continued to grow this year even as hours were added) and "Heroes" (as an "Origins" spin-off, later dumped) -- if something is popular, buy more-more-more.

Critics and competitors may titter about declines, but in the case of "Got Talent," the math is on the network's side: NBC is pulling more successful hours from the show than before from a show that -- before the Olympics, at least -- was up among total viewers compared to last year.

And if audiences get burned out and "Talent" declines next summer?

Well ... executives will just have to jump that canyon when they come to it.

Overall: NBC won the evening in the demo and total viewers, and bested news competitors at 10 p.m. with its coverage of the Democratic National Convention (8.6 million, 2.3/7). Speakers included former president Bill Clinton and vp nominee Joe Biden.

Fox placed second with a pair of "Bones" repeats (5.8 million, 1.8/5). CBS was third, with "Greatest American Dog" (5.6 million, 1.7/5) showing a post-Olympics rebound, up 31% to mark its second-best performance of the series. A repeat and DNC coverage (5.3 million, 0.9/3) followed. ABC was fourth, with repeats leading into the DNC (3.3 million, 0.9/3).