Fans of “America’s Got Talent” – many upset by back-to-back episodes without a single new performance last week – are getting the next best thing to an apology from NBC brass.
Paul Telegdy, the network’s head of alternative (reality) programming, promises he “wouldn’t do it again.”
Viewers invested two nights a week since mid-June watching pre-taped auditions with the implied payoff of performers going head-to-head when they were voted through to the next rounds in Las Vegas.
But in episodes airing July 28 and 29, a third of the hopefuls were booted before making it out of the airport, and no one was allowed to perform on camera. Producers chose instead to recycle stock footage as the judges dragged out their announcements of who’s in and who’s out
“There is always a juncture in the format where we have to eliminate a large number of episodes to move forward to our semi-finals,” Telegdy tells The Post.
“We tried it in a number of different ways in previous seasons with certain kinds of performances and we will certainly be looking for ways to improve it.”
In recent years, the fourth place network has come under increased fire from TV critics and viewers for eliminating more traditional scripted programming with cheaper-to-produce “alternative” shows.
By Sean Daly