Panned by the critics, short of cash and with a sharp decline in audiences, these are tough times for UK television. But while the BBC and ITV agonise over their future, British actors have hit paydirt in America.

American television executives have staged an extraordinary raid on Britain’s talent pool to lead the casts of some of next season’s most vaunted series in the US.

About one third of “pilots” for new series being produced this year feature Britons in leading or prominent roles. That means that more than two dozen characters could be played by Britons when America’s big networks — including ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox — order shows for the autumn schedules, an unprecedented trend in stateside TV casting.

Among the invaders is Ray Stevenson, born in Northern Ireland and brought up a Geordie in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. A graduate of the Old Vic, Stevenson starred in Band of Goldand Peak Practice before his American breakthrough as Titus Pullo in Rome. Now, after the feature film King Arthur in which he played Sir Dagonet, he is to play a Long Island cop for a proposed new CBS series, Babylon Fields.

For the past few months, Stevenson has been learning to pronounce Long Island the correct way: “Long-guy-land.”

But a Briton playing a gritty Long Island cop? This might sound as unlikely as Laurence Olivier playing Hannibal Smith in The A-Team,but then, who would have expected a British comedian to play a swaggering, misanthropic, drug-addicted American diagnostician called Gregory House? Before that role, Hugh Laurie was best known in the US as the Dad on the computer-animated family comedy Stuart Little. Now he has an Emmy nomination, two Golden Globes, and a paycheque of about $300,000 (£151,000) an episode.

“It’s as if you’re playing left-handed,” said Laurie recently about acting with an American accent in an all-American show. “Or it’s like everyone else is playing with a tennis racquet and you have a salmon.” Laurie’s success has convinced American network executives that stage-trained British actors can take lead roles with American accents, and that audiences will be none the wiser. As a result, Michelle Ryan, a former EastEnder, is taking the star role in a remake of the 1970s TV show Bionic Woman; and Britain’s Lena Headey is to play the Sarah Connor character from the Terminator movies in a new show called The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

There are other reasons for the British invasion: American network executives are finding it increasingly hard to compete with movie studios for strong actors, particularly male leads between the ages of 35 and 45. Going to Britain gives them access to an entirely separate pool of talent.

Then there’s the money: American leads will rarely work for less than $100,000 an episode. Britons will act for much less, although money may also be a factor in their deciding to swap London for Los Angeles — success across the Atlantic can earn them far more than they could ever make at the BBC and ITV. Among other British actors hoping to hit the career jackpot in America this season are Kevin McKidd, Tom Conti, Julian Sands and Damian Lewis.

Actors are not the only British influence on America’s TV schedules. With American Idol (a hugely successful clone of the British Pop Idol) still at the top of national ratings and the American version of The Office winning acclaim, networks are now falling over each other to import other UK formats.

Hence the suspiciously familiar-sounding Football Wives, to be aired on the ABC network (if executives give it the go-ahead). The show concerns a fictional American football team, the Orlando Stingrays and, of course, their spouses. Another show, Viva Laughlin,is inspired by the British musical-drama Blackpool. In the American version, the action is transplanted to Laughlin, Nevada — a more family-friendly alternative to Las Vegas, located some 94 miles south of Sin City. Stateside remakes of I’m With Stupid, The IT Crowdand Life on Mars are also in the works for autumn’s TV schedule.

Meanwhile, recent arrivals from London Heathrow at Los Angeles immigration can only hope to get the same reaction as Laurie: after seeing his audition for the role of House (taped in a hotel bathroom in Namibia, as Laurie was filming Flight of the Phoenix), one of the producers, Bryan Singer, infamously declared: “See, this is what I want: an American guy.”

Success across the Pond

Ricky Gervais, star of The Office, defined his cameo appearance on the popular American cartoon series The Simpsons as the pinnacle of his comedy career

John Cleese. right, featured in the American sitcom Will and Grace in 2004 as Karen’s fiancé

Mick Jagger, one quarter of the Rolling Stones, played himself in an episode of popular US show Knights of Prosperity in 2007. Viewers witnessed him kicking a football around his multimillion-dollar flat

The British actor Tom Conti appeared in two episodes of Friends in 1998 as the father of Ross’s English girlfriend, Emily

The musician Phil Collins has made cameo appearances in Steven Spielberg’s Hook and And the Band Played On. He also appeared in an episode of the television series Miami Vice called Phil the Shrill

Source: Internet Movie Database

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of the Decade
• 70 facts you didn't know about Marvel
• The 50 Biggest Movies Of 2010