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Janet Jackon doc, despite criticism, a hit for Lifetime

Free Press wire reports | 2/3/2022, 6 p.m.
Janet Jackson’s four-part documentary on Lifetime was the network’s most-watched non-fiction show since “Surviving R. Kelly” three years ago, and …
Janet Jackson arrives at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in New York on March 29, 2019. This past weekend’s “Janet Jackson” documentary was the most popular non-fiction show on Lifetime since its “Surviving R. Kelly” documentary three years ago. The Nielsen company said roughly 4 million people watched on live television, digitally or on demand in the first few days it was out, numbers that are only expected to grow. Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/Associated Press

Janet Jackson’s four-part documentary on Lifetime was the network’s most-watched non-fiction show since “Surviving R. Kelly” three years ago, and viewership is continuing to grow.

The documentary series debuted Friday and Saturday night on Lifetime and was simulcast on the A&E network. With the musician and her manager-brother Randy listed as executive producers, the series was an intriguing look at a reclusive singer yet also received criticism for issues skirted or left out entirely.

“But throughout ‘Janet Jackson,’ a four-hour documentary that premiered over two nights on Lifetime and A&E, the highs and lows of Jackson’s career are often presented as a kind of collateral asset or damage. Her brothers were famous first; Jackson was the spunky younger sister who came after,” wrote a New York Times critic. “When her brother Michael, then the most famous pop star on the planet, faced his first allegations of sexual impropriety, Jackson lost her opportunity for a lucrative sponsorship with Coca-Cola. When a wardrobe malfunction derailed Jackson’s performance at the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, it is her career that’s tanked, and not that of her collaborator, the rising star Justin Timberlake.”

The first part on Friday was seen by 2.8 million people on live TV, and another 1.2 million in the next few days either digitally or on demand, the Nielsen company said. Part two had a similar viewership of 4.3 million, part three had 3.7 million and the final part had 3.8 million.

Those numbers are expected to grow with delayed viewing over the next few weeks.