Judging the judges of AGT: Piers Morgan

Ever since the first season of American Idol, very few talent shows have been able to survive without the presence of a brutally honest Brit. Originally, Simon Cowell himself had intended to reprise this role on America’s Got Talent, but could not due to the conditions of his American Idol contracts, and so the AGT producer had to find someone worthy of judging in his place. Enter Piers Morgan, a veteran of the tabloids and no stranger to resentment, and the rest is AGT history.

As a former tabloid reporter whose career was virtually reinvented by AGT, Morgan has every reason in the world to want AGT to be successful. While Sharon Osbourne and David Hasselhoff predominantly concern themselves with personal entertainment, Morgan prioritizes himself with looking for America’s next great superstar. He is easily the most objective of the three and will not hesitate to point out the fallacies in mediocre acts, nor to make his opinion known of acts that are blatantly weak or obnoxious. Strangely enough, Morgan’s combination of brutal honesty, dry wit and professionalism all combine to make him the most likable of the three.

Morgan’s dedication to finding a winner, however, may also be his greatest shortcoming. In spite of his high standards for AGT, he ultimately permits a substantial amount of cannon fodder to seep its way into the live shows. One might therefore be led to believe that, while Morgan is right to be searching for the next great superstar, he may be coming to his final decisions prematurely. No explanation has been given, but the most logical assumption would be that Piers identifies the three or four acts most likely to win it all and dismisses the rest as runners up. If that is how he views things, it should not matter to him who the remaining thirty-odd acts are since they are all going to lose to those three or four surefire winners anyway. It would be unfair to assume that he chooses poor acts with the intention of having them lose, though he may instead be permitting Sharon Osbourne and David Hasselhoff to have more freedom selecting the remaining finalists than he should.

Morgan’s observant honesty can also work against him to varying degrees. While it is a definite plus that he is not afraid to be booed by the friends and family of an act in the audience, it unfortunately opens him up to the possibility for antagonism. Several past competitors have deliberately disregarded his advice or responded by ridiculing him, the most infamous case being that of David & Dania, who bashed the Brit all the way into the finale. While most viewers can appreciate his honesty, others greatly despise it and intentionally vote against him. If Morgan wants to minimize the amount of Brit bashing and biased voting done during AGT, he needs to learn to distribute his venom sparingly.

Though Morgan’s methods offer room for improvement, he has shown progress over the years. In the first season, Morgan often gave unnecessary advice and hit the X on some acts in the semifinals for trivial reasons, almost as if he were worrying that too many acts were receiving three checks for it to be interesting. In the second season, Morgan kicked this bad habit, but developed another one in its place: at the open call, Morgan admitted to hitting his buzzer just to see if an act would be thrown off by it, first against Gregory Popovich's Comedy Pet Theater, and a second time against Liang Patti. The buzzers remained the same in the third season, but Piers began demonstrating more restraint in their use. Morgan is only human and has his faults, but his dedication to AGT is evidently great enough that he is willing to address them.

Many viewers may hate to admit it, but America’s Got Talent would not have survived this long without a Brit. Piers Morgan is the only cast member who is not readily expendable.