While some media decry the feeding frenzy over Michael Jackson’s demise, many TV shows, and their viewers, are feasting on it.
Nightline is way up over its typical late June, early July viewership.
CNN has benefited tremendously from casual viewer tune in. Comparing its prime-time ratings Wednesday, June 24 and Wednesday, July 1, it was up 41% in viewers and 68% in the cable news target adults 25-54 demo.
Since syndicated show ratings lag prime-time ratings by a week, we won’t see the effects on shows like ET, Inside Edition, and TMZ until sometime next week.
And while I don’t have any numbers, my guess is that the LA Times is seeing a readership bump online and maybe even on the newstand as well.
The past week has been filled with breathless rumors and revelations from supposed intimates of Michael Jackson. Hyper-competitive news outlets are lapping up supposedly inside information from a motley cast of supporting characters, including Deepak Chopra, Lou Ferrigno and Al Sharpton, as well as many lesser lights.
A top publicist hired by the dead singer’s family has lashed back at the extensive and error-prone media coverage.
“People should be embarrassed when they print, blog or say things on the air that are proven to be entirely untrue or partially untrue,” said Ken Sunshine, a veteran PR consultant retained Wednesday by the Jackson family. “And there should be a shame in it.
“You watch these interview shows all night and all day,” he added, referring to the nearly nonstop coverage on cable news. “The people that they get to interview: Where are the standards of choosing somebody to go on-camera? . . . The so-called experts, who the hell are these people?”
In his professional life, Sunshine has of course very good reasons to advance such an argument. But many Jackson-fatigued viewers are likely asking similar questions. Sixty-three percent of Americans say the musician’s death is getting too much media coverage, according to a survey released Thursday by HCD Research.
On the other hand, 80% in the same poll said they were engaged by Jackson stories when they saw them. So the past week has seen TV and websites awash with speculative and conflicting reports about whether the pop singer may have committed suicide or accidentally overdosed, whether he was the birth father of his three children, what sort of custody battle might ensue and even such basics as where his body is being held and the details of funeral arrangements.
“The frenzy is similar to O.J., but the media environment is completely different because there was no Internet, the cable universe was much smaller, and the press of attention was less as a result,” said CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, who rose to national prominence 15 years ago as one of many pundits during the O.J. Simpson case, which ushered in the modern tabloid era.
via Los Angeles Times.
Gossip and bad news are the “hit makers”.
We haven’t even begin to see the end of the MJ Frenzy. WHen it finally comes out that he died of an overdose of Diprivan and the doctor is charged. The real frenzy will begin.
~Lanie~
Lanie, I have hibernated myself from the coverage because I knew this would be a circus. However, it’s on point when you say that the real frenzy hasn’t even started yet.
I remember the OJ frenzy, the Jon Bonait(?) Ramsey frenzy, the Lorena Bobbit frenzy — dozens of them over the past 20 years the networks slashed their news budgets and staked out easy-to-cover media havens with plenty of local reporters to steal and borrow from – ie, LA and New York. As an old hand at this, I have found it sinfully easy to not see a single second of MJ coverage. If you don’t want to be demoralized by Web coverage as well, do like they used to say if you don’t like Channel Whatever – don’t click on to anything with the words ” Michael Jackson” in it. It’s not rocket science.
Look on the bright side. Sarah Palin managed to suspend the unending Jackson “Specials” and dubious “Breaking News” for almost a whole afternoon and evening! We got to see all the endless “expert” explanations of why she is quitting the governorship. Same media vultures, “different close and personal people in the know.” It would be nice if the networks and cable news outlets had real journalists who actually had to have factual information before launching a story. Guess those days are gone forever. Just make something up. No one will bother to check or if they do finally bother to check the lie may have already become the reality.
I was at best buy today & at a tv they were showing the michael jackson dvd concert….there were 17 people just standing there watching at 1 point…ive never seen that in a store before.
I was at the gym when the news broke on the television that he died. I was watching TV while running and when it broke you instintly saw everybody that was watching looking at eachother in shock. People tipped off other people of what was happening and soon everybody was tuned in to CNN. It got to the point where the gym management took off the music playlist and blasted CNN’s coverage. There were a group of pretty distraught woman. It was incredibly surreal.The next day the music being blasted was MJ all day long.
Im not angry at the amount of coverage, more so at the irresponsible manner some news sources have managed it. All the networks ran with the reports from London’s National Enquirer about his body being in horrible condition and the nanny bumping his stomach….It was all proven to be bogus! More specificaly I will point out an investigator ET is using that I as a casual MJ fan I know is full of it.
Cathy, your comment on the need of real journalists to present facts is what so many of us clamor for. However, the sad reality is that conjecture, speculation and ‘expert’ analysis accounts for much of the content on these 24/7 television outlets. So few hours in a day for the decision makers, yet so little desire or resources to bring attention to other events, whether its globally or locally.
If anything, those of us who consume the media as much as we do have become more aware that there are a plethora of outlets (TV, print, online, radio) that we can gather information from and somehow connect the dots on what are the generally accepted facts. However, just as the professionals run on speculation, we consumers do a pretty good job of mucking things up.
Has the body of Michael Jackson been DNA tested yet? Maybe its not really him and the body in the freezer is just his stunt double ———————— seriously. Maybe CW could have a new show “The Next Michael Jackson” featuring a slate of Michael Jackson impersonators, one of whom is Michael himself! — seriously. Wouldnt that be the sort of thing CW would cook up?