Britney Spears, Simon Cowell Make (Ratings) Record
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As a ratings draw, Britney Spears still has the X factor.
Numbers aren't yet available for last night's MTV special, Britney: For the Record, but reports from Britain said Spears' live weekend appearance there on Simon Cowell's X Factor helped the American Idol-esque competition series to its biggest-ever audience.
Miley Cyrus also guested on the show, which, at its peak, attracted 12.6 million viewers, London's Guardian reported.
Speaking today to E News' Ryan Seacrest, Cowell told his Idol compatriot that 60 percent of all TVs in use in the U.K. on Saturday night were tuned to the show.
"Of all the artists I have ever had on any of these shows, there was more buzz, more excitement for this girl," Cowell said of Spears. "It was as if the president was on the show."
Elsewhere in the weekend ratings, per Nielsen estimates, ABC's Desperate Housewives (15.6 million) was Sunday's most-watched scripted show, but was down about 2 million from its season average.
After jettisoning its barely watched outsourced Sunday lineup, the CW managed to offer a significantly more watched offering of the 2002 Steve Irwin movie The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course (1.3 million). Overall, the network still wasn't close to being a factor—X or otherwise.
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