America's Got Talent (season 3)

The third season of America's Got Talent, an American television reality show talent competition, premiered on NBC on June 17, 2008. Opera singer Neal E. Boyd was named the winner on October 1, 2008.

Preliminary auditions were held in New York, Dallas, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, and MySpace from January to April. David Hasselhoff, Piers Morgan and Sharon Osbourne returned as judges. Jerry Springer also returned as host.

It premiered in the United Kingdom on the channel ITV2, 7 months after the United States premiere. It premiered in Singapore on Channel 5 in September 2008, and in Hong Kong on channel TVB Pearl on May 23, 2009.

This season, the audition stage became different. This season, the X on the stages (above) and judges table matched the ones from Britain's Got Talent or has been borrowed for this season. After this season, Jerry Springer stepped down as host.

Selection process

Season three is similar to Season two in the audition process, except that the auditions were held in large theaters, there were three more audition episodes, and two more audition sites. The season also carried over the Las Vegas boot camp, but acts were divided into more groups, such as ventriloquists, male singers, female singers, opera, instrumental music, bands, and other variety acts. There were forty acts that passed through, instead of twenty. The semi-final process consisted of shows on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Ten of the top forty acts performed each of the shows for four weeks. Five were eliminated each show by public vote during the "Top 40" episodes. However, the contestants that come in fifth and sixth place faced the judges' decision. The panel was able to eliminate the act they wished not to put through. Afterward, the Top 40 was narrowed down to a Top 20.