Britney ad 'watched more than Super Bowl highlights'

Television commercials starring Britney Spears shown during America's Super Bowl have been replayed more than the highlights of the dramatic game.

The American football contest was the closest result in recent years, but owners of digital video recorders prefer to watch Spears promoting Pepsi.

The TiVo recorders allow users to skip the advertisements on programmes they have recorded, but a survey found users were skipping their recordings of the game in favour of the Spears commercials.

The TiVo company monitored 10,000 of its 280,000 subscribers and found they were watching the singer in an ad set in the 1950s more than any other part of the Super Bowl.

In the black-and-white commercial a modestly-dressed Spears sings in a traditional American lemonade shop and ends with a Marilyn Monroe-style wink at the camera.

The commercial was one of a series of five 30-second slots which cost the company a total of £8.5 million to make and broadcast.

Last year viewing figures showed that more people tuned in for the Super Bowl advertisements than for the game itself.