Cowell loses his lustre to Laurie

Simon Cowell is still the top dog on American television, but he may be losing his touch. The acerbic host and chief critic on the wildly popular talent show American Idol - an offshoot of the UK original, Pop Idol - has lost around three million viewers over the past year.

Meanwhile, another Brit, Hugh Laurie, who follows him on the air on Wednesday nights in the medical melodrama House, is one of the few TV stars in the US who is holding his own.

May is when US advertisers pay especially close attention to ratings figures on the small screen. By common consent, it has been a disastrous season for all the networks - prime-time viewership is down by more than 2.5 million over the past two months. Nobody can quite fathom why.

American Idol remains a a must-watch for millions of Americans - 23.7 million, according to last week's audience figures - but it is clearly losing the lustre it enjoyed in its early seasons.

The show is now down to its final contestants, and normally the entire country would be abuzz about who will emerge as the eventual winner. Perhaps because the format is getting tired, or because this year's contestants are uninspiring, that isn't happening to quite the same extent.

House's success is a bright spot in what TV industry analysts are calling the worst spring in memory.