American news, especially during the interminable presidential primaries and subsequent campaign, fills our bulletins. American culture seeps across the Atlantic and stains our shores. And American TV makes up a sizeable chunk of our viewing time. OK, in many cases that's not a bad thing, but then you've got American's Got Talent. If you've been watching this show, filling in the Friday night slot on ITV2 left vacant by American Idol and waiting for Xtra Factor to start later in the summer, you'll know that the ten finalists this year are all pretty good. So what am I moaning about? Well, the fact they're not really "this year's" finalists, for a start.

No, this is last year's show we're watching and the winner was announced in August 2007.

Much of the enjoyment from these shows comes from the tension of the voting. The format varies from show to show and in this case, now we're into "the final" ten, two acts will be voted off each week until, presumably, we're left with a head-to-head between the last two acts standing. Ordinarily then, you'd be rooting for your favourite and keeping your fingers crossed that they don't get voted off.

With American reality shows, it's hard enough trying to avoid news of the result when the UK airing is a few days behind the US. American Idol is notorious for this. Their shows air on Tuesday and Wednesday, with a results show on Thursday. We show a combined package on Friday. So for that crucial 24 hours - often extending to 48 hours in the latter part of the series - if you don't want your enjoyment of the entire show spoiled, regular viewers know they have to keep away from bulletin boards, headlines, newsgroups and TV sites. When Taylor Hicks won American Idol a few years ago I picked up the result simply by seeing his name in a tag cloud - most searched for phrases or something - two days before seeing the final.

So that's tough enough. But when the result is a YEAR OLD, it's nigh-on impossible. So why the huge delay in broadcast between the US and here? I think I may have already stumbled across the most obvious answer. With ITV2 schedules busy for the rest of the year with other reality offerings, this may be the only slot available. One show has to slide a stupid amount away from its original air date, and it makes some kind of sense for it to be the lowest profile, least popular show of the bunch.

I'm a sucker for this stuff, so I'll still be tuning in each Friday to see how far they all get. The Glamazons, the Calypso Tumblers, Terry Fator the singing, impressionist ventriloquist, Sideswipe, human beat-boxer Antoinette "Butterscotch" Clinton, reggae diamond Cas Haley and some other less original but in most cases equally strong singers - so far they're all still in the running over here and they all deserve to be. But if you're watching the show and you don't want it all spoiled take my advice and stay away from Googling anything remotely resembling "America's Got Talent" or the NBC site for the next few weeks.