Michael Jackson’s Memorial Live Stream Reaches 9.7 Million Views

According to Mashable CNN’s live stream coverage of Michael Jackson’s Memorial reached a whopping 9.7 million views with a maximum of 781,000 concurrent viewers, just shy of CNN’s record set by Barack Obama’s inauguration which reached 27 million total and 1.3 million concurrent live streams. Other services streaming Jackson’s Memorial live reached record setting numbers including: UStream, who brodcasted CBS’ News coverage, reporting approx 4.6 million streams of the event and Justin.tv, which broadcasted E!’s coverage, which has not released their streaming numbers, but reports 150,000 impressions of the page hosting their video feed. MSN.com according to a site spokesperson, received its biggest traffic spike ever during the Jackson event, with 50% more people watching the memorial than watched Barack Obama’s inauguration. The site delivered more than 3 million streams.

Twitter and Facebook were also Jackson takeovers.  All 10 trending Twitter topics were MJ realated since 30 minutes leading up to the start of the Memorial Service, and the term “Michael Jackson” generated approx 80,000 tweets per hour. CNN’s Facebook Connect integration for Jackson Memorial service saw over 6,000 Michaeal Jackson related status updates posted every minute nearly double the average during Obama’s inauguration.

Calculating just how many people in total watched the ceremony — around the world and across all platforms — will take several days and even then will likely have to resort to an approximation, given the huge variety of outlets, but we will attempt to keep you posted on the numbers.