'Bones' up in ratings with early premiere

Bones went to Britain for its season premiere — and came back with killer ratings. The two-hour opener, which had Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and Booth (David Boreanaz) working with English counterparts to solve a murder, averaged about 9.7 million viewers, according to Nielsen’s overnight ratings. That’s up 1.3 million over last year’s premiere and enough to win the night in young adults for Fox. Never underestimate the drawing power of British accents — or, you know, launching a series early in September against weaker competition.

America’s Next Top Model, however, didn’t look as good with its two-hour premiere: 3.5 million tuned in to see Tyra pick through the 11th crop of catwalk hopefuls, down 1.7 million from its September start last year. (Don’t cry for The CW too much, though; it’s still basking in the afterglow of those golden 90210 ratings from earlier this week.) NBC’s summer holdout America’s Got Talent stood up to the shiny new competition, garnering about 10.2 million viewers during those same two hours, leading into the Peacock’s continued dominance of the Republican National Convention coverage at 10 p.m.