Regular John

We've had some fun here tracking the attempts of one Brit to make a dent in the hearts of American tv viewers. From next week, another has a go.

Birmingham-born, Cambridge-educated comedian John Oliver escaped the clutches of Mock the Week and Fighting Talk in 2006, to join Jon Stewart's Daily Show team in New York City - as "Senior British Correspondent". Jon is off for 12 weeks, to direct a film, so John is his chosen one to fill some of the gap - he gets eight weeks, and the remaining four will be filled with repeats.

Most recent overnight figures in the States show an audience of 600,000 18-49 year-olds, and total viewers around 1.5m. But there are many more repeats of the show, and edited versions shown in the UK and around the world.  Oliver tells The Hollywood Reporter: "The ratings are going to go down. Ice is cold, and the ratings of this show are going to go down in the summer. Add to that the fact that I’m here, so you’ll have your regular summer decline and that will become a more elemental nosedive... I’ve got to at least land this show in the water. So I know the ratings are going to go down, I just have to make sure that they don’t collapse".

• Piers Morgan secured the attention of just 86,000 US viewers aged 24-54, in figures for his CNN show on Monday, rising to 445,000 if you include all ages.