Britney’s Bomb Causes MTV Traffic Explosion

While it was supposed to be Britney Spears’ comeback performance, MTV.com was the big winner after the falling star’s abysmal performance at the channel’s annual Video Music Awards.

The music site saw its traffic surge to record numbers as people visited to watch the trainwreck in action. MTV.com logged 2.6 million visitors on Sunday (remember the awards were held at night, so that wasn’t even a full day), making it the site’s highest-trafficked day ever. As of 3:30 PM ET on Monday, MTV.com had delivered 7 million streams.

The lesson here: Online video can breathe life into TV failures — as long as they’re spectacular ones.

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