LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Britney Spears showed off her mean streak as the new talent judge on “The X Factor,” but the TV singing contest stumbled with American viewers, drawing a smaller audience than last year and getting drowned out by “The Voice” and “America’s Got Talent.”

In a first head-to-head battle of three talent shows, an average 8.5 million Americans – about 3.5 million or 32 percent down from the 2011 opener – watched Spears and singer Demi Lovato make their debuts in the heavily-hyped two-hour season premiere of Fox show “The X Factor” on Wednesday.

LOS ANGELES, Sept 10 (Reuters) – Britney Spears makes her
debut this week as the biggest celebrity judge on U.S.
television in a revamped version of “The X Factor” that is
looking for its own special something in a stepped-up ratings
battle with “The Voice”.

In what TV pundits expect to be a tough contest for the most
viewers, “The X Factor” returns to Fox television for a second
season on Wednesday, after “The Voice” moves to the fall slot on
NBC for a three-night season opener, starting on Monday.

LOS ANGELES, Sept 9 (Reuters) – The North American box
office hit a slump at the weekend, with top earner “The
Possession” taking in less than $10 million and what could be
the gloomiest overall haul since the aftermath of the Sept. 11,
2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

With only a couple of new releases to tempt movie fans,
horror movie “The Possession” pulled in an estimated $9.5
million in the United States and Canada.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Horror movie “The Possession” held its grip on the box office for a second week, but North American ticket sales slumped in the worst movie-going weekend for at least four years.

With only a handful of new releases to tempt movie fans, “The Possession” pulled in just $9.5 million in the United States and Canada. The top 12 films grossed an estimated $52 million in total – a 40 percent drop from last week and about 20 percent down on the same weekend in 2011.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – British boy band One Direction picked up two early awards at the MTV Video Music Awards on Thursday, crowning their arrival on the U.S. pop scene just six months ago.

The five guys, contestants on the British version of TV singing contest “The X Factor,” beat Justin Bieber and Rihanna for best pop video, and they also won the most-shareworthy video award for their debut hit single “What Makes You Beautiful.”

LOS ANGELES, Sept 6 (Reuters) – An angry Simon Cowell hit
back at NBC on Thursday for a late decision to pit singing
contest “The Voice” in direct competition with his revamped “The
X Factor” season premiere next week, calling it a mean-spirited
spoiling tactic.

NBC fired a new round in the ratings war in the crowded TV
talent show market by announcing it would air a third night of
“The Voice” next Wednesday – the very night “X Factor” returns
to Fox with new judges Britney Spears and Demi Lovato.

LOS ANGELES, Sept 6 (Reuters) – Former President Bill
Clinton fired up the Democratic National Convention and sparked
more than 22,000 tweets per minute, but millions more Americans
tuned into football than watched him on television.

Some 21 million Americans watched the National Football
League’s season kickoff game on NBC between the Dallas Cowboys
and the New York Giants on Wednesday night, dwarfing the 7.5
million who watched Clinton’s lengthy, humorous and detail-heavy
address on the ABC and CBS networks, according to Nielsen data.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Katherine Jackson was unaware she had been reported missing or that her pop star son’s three children were trying to contact her during a stay in Arizona last month in which she was unable to communicate with the outside world.

The Jackson family matriarch, who on Thursday was reinstated as guardian of the “Thriller” singer’s children, said in a court document that she was told the kids were fine.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Kennedys may be America’s most famous political dynasty, but it took one of their own to get them to open up about their private lives and their place in U.S. history.

Filmmaker Rory Kennedy, 43, the youngest of the 11 children of slain U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and his wife, Ethel, persuaded her mother to give her first extended interview in more than 20 years for an upcoming HBO documentary that is also the first film about the Kennedys to come from within the family.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Oscar-winning writer Aaron Sorkin on Wednesday vigorously defended his controversial show set in a fictional cable TV newsroom, and refuted reports that he fired his writing staff.

Sorkin said that “Newsroom,” which mixes real news stories with fictional characters in a workplace drama, was not intended to thumb its nose at the way established television channels have covered big news events.