‘America’s Got Talent’ Season 17 Will Have 10 Weeks of Auditions
Photo by: Trae Patton/NBC Reading Time: 3 minutes
NBC seems to have confirmed that America’s Got Talent Season 17 will have a whopping 10 weeks of auditions before the live shows kick off in August. This means the traditional Judge Cuts round will apparently not be returning as some fans previously speculated.
AGT Season 17 Set to Have 10 Weeks of Auditions
NBC recently released an article laying out the schedule for AGT Season 17 moving forward. We’ve already seen two episodes of auditions and it looks like we can expect eight more before the live shows.
Auditions will continue through August 2, airing every Tuesday night on NBC. Then on August 9, the live shows will begin. The show will start airing on both Tuesdays and Wednesdays to allow for results shows. The first part of the finale will air September 13, with the winner announced September 14.
NBC writes that “select acts” will go to the live shows after the audition round. However, the article doesn’t give any more information about how these acts will be chosen. With ten weeks of auditions, there will be a lot of performers to choose from. Since the network has extended auditions this season, fans shouldn’t expect to see a Golden Buzzer in each episode. Since there are six Golden Buzzers in total, we expect to see four Golden Buzzer-less episodes. A similar format was used in the past season of Britain’s Got Talent.
The article confirms that fans will vote for their favorites to move on each week when the show goes live. Each results show will also feature the AGT Save and the Judges’ Choice to keep two acts in the competition. This season will also feature a group Golden Buzzer, so six acts will be sent straight to the live shows.
SEE ALSO: FANS CALL OUT ‘AGT’ FOR MADISON TAYLOR BAEZ’S GOLDEN BUZZER, IS IT FAIR?
Don’t Expect the Judge Cuts to Return
For the past two seasons, America’s Got Talent has not featured the Judge Cuts round — at least not in the way fans are familiar with it. The Judge Cuts used to span four weeks and feature guest judges, as contestants performed again for a chance to go to the live shows. Then in Season 15, the show shortened the round to one episode, with only some acts performing again.
In Season 16, the round was shortened even further. That year, judges were briefly shown deliberating during the final episode of the auditions about which acts should move on. Simon Cowell has said he prefers a shorter period between the auditions and the live shows, hinting that the Judge Cuts might be dead.
However, some fans recently speculated that this part of the competition could be back since there are so many weeks between auditions and live shows. NBC even said in a recent article that contestants this season would have to “proceed past the auditions and Judges’ Cuts rounds.”
However, according to this new article, the season will be broken up into just the auditions and live shows, leading up to the finale. Obviously there will have to be some decision-making from the judges about who moves on, but it looks like fans shouldn’t expect a return to the previous format.
A lack of Judge Cuts makes the audition process slightly less impactful. Even if an act receives three “yes” votes from the judges, they could still be unceremoniously eliminated without performing again. Let us know what you think about these changes in the comments below.
I think it’s still possible judge cuts return, and that they’re leaving it as a surprise.
10 audition episodes does not sound right! There has to be something they’re not saying. The Judge Cuts could return after the nonsense deliberations! I refuse to believe this until more news is confirmed after auditions episode 6!
Hopefully they do a judge cut or something too see all the act again and see if they go though or not
WE NEED JUDGES CUTS, THEY’RE VERY IMPORTANT TO ALL AGT SEASONS, AND IT ALWAYS WILL BE, SO PLEASE DON’T GET RID OF IT, AND BY THE WAY, WHO’S RESPONSIBLE FOR NOT GOING TO DO JUDGES CUTS, WHOEVER IT IS, THEY’RE GOING TO HAVE A TALK WITH ALL OF US AGT FANS