Britney Draws More Than 9 Million Rubberneckers

But After the Wreckage Was Cleared, MTV's Awards Show Audience Slipped

Call it the Britney bounce.

This year's MTV Video Music Awards, which began Sunday night with a much-hyped and much-derided comeback performance by Britney Spears, attracted more than 7 million viewers. That's up more than 1 million from last year, when the trophy show drew its smallest audience in 10 years.

The first 15 minutes of the trophy show, which included Spears's sluggish rendition of her new single "Gimme More," proved to be the most watched portion, with more than 9 million viewers. The ratings declined steadily from there.

Despite the bounce, the VMAs are still not what they used to be; the telecast peaked in 2002 when nearly 12 million people tuned in.

Elsewhere on the cable networks, TNT's "The Closer" closed out its summer season this Monday with 9.2 million viewers, its biggest audience ever and ad-supported cable's largest audience ever for a single series telecast.

Spike TV drew its best non-wrestling audience ever Saturday night with an Ultimate Fighting Championship title fight. Nearly 5 million viewers watched the mixed martial arts bout in which Quinton "Rampage" Jackson beat down Dan Henderson. By comparison, just 3 million watched the U.S. Open women's tennis final the same night on CBS.

Last Wednesday's Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire drew 3.1 million viewers on Fox News Channel, making it the most watched of the 11 debates aired so far on various cable and broadcast networks. Sunday's Democratic debate from Miami, aired on Univision, averaged 2.1 million.

Among broadcast networks, NBC won the weekly Nielsen ratings race for the first time since January thanks to a pair of pigskin games.

Sunday night's telecast of the New York Giants-Dallas Cowboys game averaged 18.2 million viewers, and NBC's Thursday night game -- New Orleans vs. Indianapolis -- drew 17.8 million.

CBS's annual "Fashion Rocks" might have just strolled down the runway for the last time. Its Friday audience of 3.2 million was the smallest yet for the franchise.

CBS announced earlier this week that it has ordered six additional episodes of the Drew Carey-hosted "Power of 10" for midseason. Last week, the game show won both its Tuesday and Wednesday 8 p.m. time slots.

Last week's top 10 programs, in order, were: NBC's "Sunday Night Football" and "NFL Thursday Special"; CBS's "60 Minutes," "Without a Trace," "CSI," "Two and a Half Men" and "CSI: Miami"; ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition"; CBS's "Big Brother 8"; and Fox's "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?"