NEW YORK (AFP) – Millions worldwide watched the memorial service for Michael Jackson, but the event failed to attract more viewers in the US than the inauguration of President Barack Obama, experts said Wednesday.
Though no definitive international figures are available, viewership for the Los Angeles farewell ceremony was probably comparable to Princess Diana's funeral in 1997 watched by 2.5 billion people globally, experts said.
"It's a global event for a global celebrity," said Rich Hanley, a journalism professor at Quinnipiac University.
"The difference with Princess Diana is the role of the Internet, allowing more people to watch," Hanley told AFP.
In the United States, media metrics institute Nielsen said 31.1 million people watched Jackson's memorial on television. A total of 18 US television stations broadcast the proceedings into 20.6 million US homes.
That compared with 33.2 million Americans who watched Diana's funeral. Other figures provided by European monitors also suggested that slightly fewer people had tuned in for Jackson's memorial.
Tuesday's figure was topped though by the 37.8 million people who followed Obama's inauguration on January 20, and overshadowed by the record 85.6 million glued to their sets in January 1991 for the first day of the Gulf War.
Hanley noted that sites including Facebook and Twitter now allowed people worldwide to follow the Los Angeles ceremony, even without a television.
"Now, all the fans, all over the globe could participate in this global spasm of mourning," Hanley said.
"You have many more appliances -- cell phones, laptops etc." that are connected to the Internet, he said, also noting that the "King of Pop" had a global fanbase unapproached by most stars today.
Columbia University professor Todd Gitlin, a media expert, told AFP that Jackson "was variously seen as talent, as victim, as singer, as dancer, as black, as post-racial."
"Somehow, he condensed all these assumptions and embodied them -- once as an avatar of excitement, even beauty, now as a fallen hero," Gitlin said.
According to high-tech company Akamai, which provides high-speed Internet access and streaming, three events caused major Internet traffic spikes in 2009: Obama's inauguration on January 20; June 25, the day when Jackson's death was reported and Tuesday's memorial.
Obama's inauguration drew most traffic, according to Akamai, which recorded seven million online visitors a minute for the event.
When news of Jackson's death was breaking, 4.2 million people a minute got online to find out details, and 3.9 million people a minute accessed the Internet during the Tuesday memorial ceremony, according to Akamai.
Experts cited a number of factors that contributed to the high figures for Obama's inauguration, ranging from its historic nature to the likelihood people would be indoors during the cold January months.
Journalism professor Hanley also said Obama appealed to young people in a way Jackson did not.
"My students have no connection with him," Hanley said. "The 80s are more their parents' concern. Obama appealed more to the younger people."
According to the Nielsen institute, fewer Americans tuned in for Jackson's ceremony than did for the burial of former president Ronald Reagan (35 million), the OJ Simpson verdict (54.6 million) or former president Bill Clinton's apology to the country for his infidelity with White House intern Monica Lewinsky (67.6 million).
But the Los Angeles proceedings did draw more US viewers than 8.8 million who watched the 2005 funeral of Pope John Paul II, Nielsen said.
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