Ratings: ‘Surviving R. Kelly’ Docuseries En Route To Making Lifetime Viewership History!

The first two hour block of Lifetime’s controversial three-part documentary, ‘Surviving R. Kelly,’ made its premiere last night despite reports its key subject, the Grammy-winning R. Kelly, was threatening a lawsuit if it aired (click here to read more on that).

Highlighting Kelly’s alleged 30-year+ history with the sexual abuse of young girls, the docuseries called on a number of testimonies from people in the singer’s circle including relatives, former business partners, and, of course, the victims themselves.  Setting Twitter alight, the hashtag #SurvivingRKelly dominated the social media platform as the night’s most trending topic – a conversation that spilled over into the next morning (January 4).

Now, preliminary ratings figures reveal people did more than talk, but also tuned into the series in droves! Joining rank among the network’s most watched programs EVER, look for details inside:

Total Viewers (Night 1) = 1.9 million

Via official press release:

The premiere of Lifetime’s ground-breaking documentary series Surviving R. Kelly captivated audiences and commanded the social conversation, delivering 1.9 million Total Viewers and marking Lifetime’s best performance in more than two years in all key demos including Adults 25-54 (1.2 million), Adults 18-49 (1.1 million), Women 25-54 (837,000), and Women 18-49 (767,000), according to Nielsen Media Research.

Surviving R. Kelly also dominated social media, ranking as the #1 most social primetime program across Broadcast and Cable for January 3, excluding sports, according to Nielsen Social Content Ratings. With over 743,000 total interactions across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, Surviving R. Kelly was Lifetime’s largest social premiere for any series or movie in network history.

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Check back next week when official figures are revealed for the entire docuseries (which is clearly off to a great start).  At this rate it could easily rank as the network’s most watched program ever.