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The cancellation of Michael Jackson, it seems, might not be so easy.
Since HBO aired last week's "Leaving Neverland" – a two-part, four-hour light on two men who said Mr. Jackson had abused them in their youth – many comments were devoted to the possibility for fans to ever listen to "Off the Wall" or "Thriller" again in all conscience.
But the numbers show that, at least so far, the popularity of Jackson's music has not budged.
Since the beginning of the year, songs from Jackson's solo catalog have been aired between 16 and 17 million times a week in the United States, on services such as Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal, according to Nielsen. Last week, including the period immediately following the premiere of the documentary on March 3 and 4, the total was 16,497,000 streams.
Even the daily listening model has not changed since the presentation of the HBO documentary. The two days of the premiere of "Leaving Neverland," a Sunday and a Monday, the number of Mr. Jackson's broadcasts fell below his typical daily average of about 2.3 million – but that matches the pattern usual broadcast of his songs, which tends to culminate in the middle of the week.
In the three days that followed the film, these figures are reassembled. Thursday – the last day for which complete information is available – they had increased to 2.5 million. As always, hits like "Beat It", "Billie Jean" and "Thriller" are particularly popular.
A competing music data service, BuzzAngle, drew a similar pattern. According to BuzzAngle, Mr. Jackson's weekly flows hovered around 16 million until mid-February, reaching 22.8 million, suggesting that the documentary's publicity had sparked interest. . Last week, the totals were stabilized at 17.1 million.
Could these numbers fall? In the days following the film, news reports suggested that Mr. Jackson's legacy was slowly being affected. The producers of "The Simpsons" shot a 28-year-old episode featuring Mr. Jackson's voice of the traffic. Radio stations in Canada and New Zealand have announced that they will stop playing Jackson's music. A star statue has been removed from a British football museum.
In the United States, radio stations have been cautious, drastically reducing the number of Jackson's music. According to Nielsen, Jackson's songs have been aired about 2,000 times a day on American radio stations in recent months. That number began to drop in February and since the documentary broadcast, it has dropped sharply to about 1,500 a day until Sunday.
"The court of public opinion seems to have condemned Michael, but at the same time, he has supporters who like him," said David Bakula, senior analyst at Nielsen. "For the long term, it could take two or three weeks for this to happen in a scheme."
Comedian Pete Davidson described what fans of Mr. Jackson and R. Kelly, accused of sexual misconduct against underage girls, have about the latest episode of Saturday Night Live. "You do not know how much someone's music really is until you discover that she's a pedophile," Davidson said during the segment "Weekend Update".
Kelly's recent performance in business may provide clues to how "Leaving Neverland" can affect Jackson's musical legacy. Like Mr. Jackson, Mr. Kelly was tried and acquitted of sexual misconduct with minors.
In early January, the popularity of Lifetime's documentary "Surviving R. Kelly" provoked a fast jump in the streams of his songs. But in the weeks that followed, even though Kelly's news was often reported – RCA Records dropped it, was indicted and gave a weird TV interview – her numbers dropped.
In the first week of the year, Kelly had 13.2 million feeds. The week after the documentary, this figure dropped to 10.8 million. Over the past six weeks, its average has been about six million, and sales of its CDs and downloads have dropped by more than half.
HBO's "Leaving Neverland" premiered 1.3 million viewers, Nielsen reported. The next night, the second part had 927,000 viewers, and the discussion "After Neverland" led by Oprah Winfrey had 780,000.
As of Monday, the total audience for Part 1 had grown to 3.7 million people, thanks to a TV viewing report, digital recorders and the HBO, HBO Go and HBO Now platforms. . millions of viewers.
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