With eight time zones between the Jonas Brothers and the Hollywood home of last Sunday's VMAs, they finally weighed in on host Russell Brand's skewering of their purity rings at the event to the BBC in his native Britain. Per the BBC report:

Nick Jonas told Newsbeat: "For us it's cool to see that he recognizes we are gentlemen." Brand later apologized to the boys for the jibe during Sunday's ceremony, which was held in Los Angeles.

The question is, did Brand misjudge the audience? Kevin Jonas replied: "I think he focused on certain things and didn't move off of them. People's attention spans in America need more than that. ... [Nick Jonas] said: "I think he did a good job. We saw him on 'Conan O'Brien' and thought he was hilarious."

With endorsements like that and such stellar ratings for the awardsfest, will Russell Brand become the first back-to-back host for the festivities since Arsenio Hall had a four-year run as emcee beginning back in 1988?

Photo: The Jonas Brothers. Credit: Wireimage.com

Combining the unknown British comedian Russell Brand with the seemingly never overexposed Britney Spears paid off for MTV as Sunday's airing of the VMAs pulled in record numbers for the network.

As per this report in Broadcasting & Cable, "When the simulcast on MTV2 is taken into account, the VMAs delivered an 8.1 grossed rating in the demo across the two networks. All told and across the two networks during its time period, the 2008 VMAs reached more than 23 million viewers two-plus, with more than 12 million 12-34. The show was the highest-rated telecast on all of cable in the 12-34 demo this year."

These numbers represent a 15% boost from last year's hostless edition of the VMAs (best remembered for Britney's bad lip syncing) and a 41% jump from the 2006 awardscast headlined by Jack Black from Gotham.

(MTV)

Spread the word. MTV is hip again. Instead of pandering to the celebrity worship of U.S. tweens, it named relatively unknown British comedian Russell Brand as host of the MTV Video Music Awards on Sept. 7, thus reminding us of that old, edgy music network that once defined cool instead of followed it.

The 33-year-old actor and stand-up comic isn't utterly unknown to Yankee hipsters. Recently, he portrayed a flamboyant British rocker in Judd Apatow 's "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and he's now shooting a flick with Adam Sandler.

But he's a major star in the U.K. where he has a hit self-titled radio show and a TV program, "Ponderland," recently nominated for best comedy by BAFTA.

"Brand has a history with the network," notes Mark Malkin at E! Online. "He was fired from his gig as a VJ on MTV in London after he came to work dressed as Osama Bin Laden on Sept. 12, 2001."

Brand told Malkin: "I didn't mention [the incident] to them when they offered me this gig, which leads me to believe that they haven't investigated my career history too closely."

"It'll be good to preside over what is sure to be only vaguely coordinated televised insanity," he told the Associated Press.

MTV will soon begin unveiling nominees slowly, on a week-by-week basis. This Friday, July 25, contenders for best male and female videos will be announced at its website HERE.

(Universal Pictures)