'Surviving R. Kelly' leads to spike in sales, streams for the singer

‘Surviving R. Kelly’ leads to spike in sales, streams for the singer

“Surviving R. Kelly,” Lifetime’s damning documentary on the R&B star, appears to have reignited interest in R. Kelly’s music even as many fans and celebrities condemn the artist and call to #MuteRKelly on social media.

According to numbers released Thursday by Nielsen, album sales, song sales and audio and video streams for the artist all have spiked since the Jan. 3 premiere of the three-night, six-hour docu-series that delved into claims that R. Kelly has operated a “sex cult” and that he has physically and sexually abused scores of women.

Read all about the R. Kelly investigation

In the three days following the premiere, which also saw the airing of parts two and three of the series, R. Kelly’s daily song and album sales more than doubled when compared with daily sales of the previous two weeks, according to data compiled by Nielsen, a data analytics company best known for TV ratings. On-demand audio streams for the same period showed a 76 percent increase, with video streams increasing by 85 percent.

Lifetime will air an encore marathon of all six-hours of “Surviving R. Kelly” on Friday, Jan. 11, starting at 5 p.m.

Julia Thompson, USA Today

Read more at usatoday.com