New episodes of three different reality shows — "America's Got Talent," "Wipeout" and "Hell's Kitchen" had good numbers in Tuesday night's fast national primetime ratings. The night was a loss for CBS, but it was too close to call an overall winner.
TOP DOGS: Both NBC and FOX did well Tuesday night. NBC got an average 2.6 rating/8 share in the key adults 18-49 demographic. "America's Got Talent," which aired on NBC from 9-11 p.m., was the night's top show with an average of 3.3/10. FOX scored a 2.9/9 average for the night with a two-hour long episode of the Gordon Ramsay cooking competition "Hell's Kitchen."
NBC's performance was hampered by a loss for "Losing It With Jillian," which posted a 1.4/4 and landed in fourth place from 8-9 p.m. behind shows on the other major networks and Univision. It's hard to give an outright win to FOX though since the margin of victory is so small and NBC has an additional hour of primetime to fill. We'll call this one a tie.
WIPED OUT: ABC got off to a great start with the season premiere of the obstacle-course game show "Wipeout," which averaged 3.1/10. "Wipeout" was the top show from 8-9 p.m., but ABC steadily lost audience in the final two hours of primetime with a pair of season premieres. The high-altitude game show "Downfall" scored a 2.0/6 and the ABC News Primetime's "Mind Games" series got a 1.3/4.
RE-RUN BLUES: So far this summer, CBS has been doing very well with repeats of scripted shows. That strategy didn't work last night. CBS got a 1.3/4 average for the evening putting them in fifth place behind all of the other major networks and Spanish-language broadcaster Univision.
