Are we that dumb?

I'm now watching Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America.
Before the program begins someone who sounds amazingly like Eric Idle of Python fame tells us the American viewers that the following program contains British accents and to find out what on earth anyone is talking about, to turn on closed captioning.
Seriously?
Do they think we are that so uncultured that we couldn't understand someone speaking in a British accent?
Please!