NEW YORK Some 20,000 people on Tuesday morning filed into Los Angeles’ Staples Center to bear witness to Michael Jackson’s memorial service, and while it’s believed that tens of millions more watched on broadcast and cable TV and via streaming online video, a final reckoning won’t be available until Wednesday.

In the meantime, representatives from the TV outlets that covered the event said the loss of two hours of daytime inventory was a decidedly minor concern.

A tour around the dial offered up nearly 20 variations on the same theme, as ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, Headline News, MTV, VH1, VH1 Classic, VH1Soul, BET, E!, TV Guide Channel, TV One, Univision and Telemundo aired live coverage of the singer’s memorial. But for a few exceptions, the networks that carried the feed did not break for commercials between 1-3 p.m. EDT, ensuring that viewers were able to see the entire ceremony as it happened.

For news outlets, the limited pullback on inventory during the service was merely business as usual. “We only went commercial-free during the ceremony itself, so you’re looking at just about two hours,” said Greg D’Alba, evp and chief operating officer, CNN Ad Sales. “We carried regular spot loads right up to and immediately afterward, and so a lot of advertisers were able to benefit from the ratings lift.”

CNN deployed anchors Anderson Cooper, Soledad O’Brien and Don Lemon to L.A. with talk-host Larry King. Along with its linear TV coverage, the network also offered real-time updates on CNN.com, including video of eulogists like Magic Johnson, Brooke Shields and Rev. Al Sharpton, as well as musical tributes by Stevie Wonder and John Mayer. In addition to a steady stream of reportage from the event, CNN.com supplemented its coverage with user-generated iReports and blog entries.

“Linear TV is still our core business, but our reach is turbo-charged by online,” D’Alba said. “An event of this scale really tests our technology. We really believe we reached a point of maximum overload, and yet everything seemed to hold up nicely. We should get some huge numbers across the board.”

Among the roster of clients that ran ads on CNN immediately before the service were General Motors, Geico and Morgan Stanley. Once CNN returned to its standard spot load, GM and Morgan Stanley returned, joined by Bridgestone and Priceline.com.

Fox News Channel’s coverage was spearheaded by Shepard Smith and Greta Van Susteren. Early on in FNC’s coverage of the service, Smith revealed that the death of Elvis Presley back in August 1977 played a role in his becoming a broadcaster.

“Live television events were relatively new to the nation...and completely new to Memphis,” Smith said, recounting his memories of watching a local television station cover the news of Elvis’ demise. “That was...the first live mini-cam that a local television station had ever used. And it was fascinating to me.”

CNN and FNC began their coverage at noon, while MSNBC started an hour earlier. Headline News carried the live feed, and CNBC cut in and out of the service throughout the early afternoon.



ABC was the first broadcaster to commit to airing the event, and anchor Charles Gibson steered the network’s coverage from New York. CBS' Katie Couric and NBC’s Brian Williams reported from Los Angeles. (NBC initially balked at covering the service, but reversed course over the weekend.)

Meanwhile, the general-entertainment cable channels each came at the story from a unique angle, but as with their news-gathering counterparts, executives at the Viacom nets said the loss of a few hours of daytime inventory -- about 14 minutes per hour per network -- was no great sacrifice.

“Michael Jackson is a part of music and pop-culture history, so it’s part of our brand mission and our commitment to our viewers to cover the event in its entirety without commercial interruption,” said a VH1 rep, who added that the ad-supported content surrounding the service was likely to enjoy a huge lift.

“It’s also about the power of the shoulder programming, benefiting from the large numbers of viewers tuning into the channels before and staying with the channel afterwards,” the VH1 exec said.

CNN’s D’Alba echoed that sentiment, adding that the final chapter in the Michael Jackson story coincides with the beginning of a pivotal era in media history. “This is a watershed moment,” D’Alba said. “I don’t know what the numbers will look like tomorrow, but I can tell you that one thing we will see when we add up our TV viewers and the people who come to us online is that we’re going to be looking at maximum exposure. This is the way all big events will be reported and witnessed from here on out.”

In terms of historic funerals, the largest audience to tune in for a televised memorial assembled on the morning of June 11, 2004, as 35.1 million Americans bid farewell to President Ronald Reagan. When Princess Diana was waked in Westminster Abbey on the morning of Sept. 6, 1997, some 33.3 million viewers watched between the hours of 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. EDT, per Nielsen ratings data.

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