The numbers speak for themselves:
* When Michael Jackson died following cardiac arrest on June 25, web traffic surged 11% globally. Google slowed to a crawl. CNN recorded 20 million page views in an hour. Twitter crashed. Facebook nearly collapsed. AOL Instant Messenger went down for 40 minutes. The L.A. Times suffered online outages. Wikipedia was "temporarily overloaded" by users who updated Jackson's page 500 times.
* Jackson's July 7 memorial was seen by 31 million American TV viewers, with an estimated global audience of 1 billion. Within days of his death, Jackson songs were played 67,000 times on radio -- a 1,735% increase. Within a week, he had sold a record 2 million downloads. Within a month, more than 9 million of his CDs had been sold, and 1 million jukebox spins racked up. The October concert film This Is It took in $250 million -- the biggest payday ever for a documentary -- while the companion album moved 4 million copies. All told, This Is It alone contributed nearly $500 million to the King of Pop's estate.
* Jackson was the "fastest-rising" search term globally on Google for 2009, the top search on Yahoo!, the "top trending topic" on Bing, Artist of the Year on iTunes and No. 3 on the Forbes list of highest-grossing dead celebrities, above Elvis and John Lennon. His official YouTube videos have been viewed 578 million times. He won four posthumous American Music Awards, bringing his total to a record 23. He'll be given a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys next month.
No matter how you measure it, Jackson's death was the biggest entertainment story of 2009.
Obviously, he wasn't the only celeb who passed away this year. In fact, he wasn't even the only star that died on June 25; Farrah Fawcett lost her lengthy battle with cancer that morning, only to end up shoved to the side once the Jacko story broke.
Why? Because Jackson's demise, like Princess Di's a dozen years earlier, was a perfect storm in the celebrity-death universe, combining all the elements required for a mass-media feeding frenzy:
* The tragic event came as a complete shock; Jackson was still relatively young, healthy and active at 50.
* While undoubtedly past his creative prime, he was hardly washed up; he was in the final stages of rehearsing for 50 sold-out concerts in London that were to serve both as a comeback and as his final live performances.
* His lifelong celebrity, record-setting professional achievements and penchant for bizarre antics -- the plastic surgeries, the masks, the hyperbaric chamber, Macaulay Culkin, the Elephant Man's bones, Neverland, Bubbles, the baby-dangling, the marriage to Lisa Marie; the list goes on and on -- ensured he was never far from the spotlight. Ditto the child-molestation charges (of which he was ultimately acquitted) and the bazillion other personal, professional and financial crises that dogged his later years.
* Finally, the ongoing criminal probe into the case -- Jackson's personal physician remains the target of a manslaughter investigation for prescribing and administering various medications to the singer shortly before his death -- and the soap-operatic machinations of his family as they attempt to control his finances, children and legacy only serve to ensure that Jackson will command headlines for months (if not years) to come.
It's often been said that death is the best career move. It's sad but true that Jackson's case is no exception. His staggering posthumous earnings have reportedly erased his massive debts. More importantly, his sins, eccentricities and failings have begun to fade into history, his reputation slowly but surely restored by a body of work that will continue to shine undiminished for generations.
Ultimately, that may ensure Jackson will be remembered not for his perceived moral failings but for the immortal melodies of Billie Jean, Beat It, Thriller, I Want You Back, Black or White, Bad, ABC, Wanna Be Startin' Somethin', Dancing Machine and I'll Be There.
After all, those numbers speak for themselves too.
