WEDNESDAY TV VIEWING SWELLS

On a night that saw the season finale of two television hits and the season debut of another, overall TV viewing during primetime on Wednesday rose to prodigious levels. Topping the ratings for the night was NBC’s big summer hit America’s Got Talent, which averaged 16.05 million viewers, peaking in the final half hour at 9:30 p.m. with 18.93 million, when 30-year-old singer Michael Grimm was announced as the winner. The solid numbers were achieved despite competition from the season premiere of Survivor: Nicaragua on CBS, which averaged 12 million viewers in the 8:00 p.m. hour and CBS’s season finale of Big Brother in the 9:00 p.m. hour which averaged 8.02 million (then attracting 7.76 million in the 10:00 p.m. hour). Successfully riding the coattails of AGT, the series premiere of Outlaw, starring Jimmy Smits, won the 10:00 p.m. hour with 10.9 million viewers.