A few months later, the Simpson family and MTV have a second star in little sister Ashlee, just 19 years old. And then some. Ashlee may already be bigger than Jessica.

   Last week, Ashlee Simpson’s debut album “Autobiography” was No. 1 on the Billboard album chart for the third week in four weeks of release with 1.2 million units sold. Older sister Jessica has never had a No. 1 album, though her latest album, "In This Skin," has done well, selling more than 2 million.

   Certainly the driver behind Ashlee's album sales was this summer’s eight-episode run of MTV's “The Ashlee Simpson Show.”

   With her older sister’s popular “Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica” as a lead-in, “Ashlee” was able to build an audience before her album was even released. And build is the key word here. Ratings for the first episode were less than promising. In its debut, “Ashlee” failed to crack the top-10 cable shows among viewers 18-34.
   But the show began to catch in the second week, drawing 1.18 million viewers, and that figure grew to 1.34 million in its third week.
   “Ashlee” hit its peak during the week ended July 25 when it attracted 1.75 million viewers 18-34. That boosted it to No. 1 on ad-supported cable in the demo and put the show ahead of Jessica’s “Newlyweds” for the only time.
   Ratings then subsided, with the Aug. 4 finale bringing in 1.31 million viewers 18-34. But by then the goal was accomplished: Ashlee Simpson had created her own fan base around her carefully crafted image as the “alternative” Simpson sister. Alternative in this case meaning she dyed her hair to become a brunette. Her music, with more electric guitar chords, sounds closer to that of Avril Lavigne as opposed to Jessica’s early-Mariah Carey sound.
   The result: one of the most successful cases of a music star created in a TV studio, following Kelly Clarkson, Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken of “American Idol.”