Spears helps boost ratings for NBC

NBC often struggles in the ratings on Thursday night, but not with Britney Spears.

Spear’s interview with Matt Lauer on “Dateline” drew an average 8.9 million viewers and built strongly throughout the hour, according to early data from Nielsen Media Research. It also won the 9 p.m. slot among the adult group most coveted by advertisers, those ages 18 to 49, with a 3.8 rating/12 share.

The 24-year-old pop star told Lauer that media criticism about her parenting skills had crossed the line. “I know I’m a good mom,” she said. Spears also said that reports of marital difficulties with husband Kevin Federline were inaccurate. “He helps me. He has to. I’m [an] emotional wreck right now,” she said, referring to her second pregnancy.

On Friday, Spears denied a report that she was considering a Namibian birth. A Namibia official had said an inquiry was made on her behalf, but the singer’s publicist, Leslie Sloane Zelnik, said in an e-mail to the Associated Press: “Not true.”