It's stuck in my head now.
Boy, I hope you're right on the ratings. The article said it was a "ratings hit" and seemed to be a fairly credible regular tally of ratings. I've no idea what's a regular rating for that timeslot for them. But I think that source is in a gray area. Yet, I admit I would not have been able to resist watching, and I'm trying to find a video of the whole program. The bit before the seance is rumored to have at least some interesting new information about his stay in Ireland.
The whole thing was a farce being honest, the show prior to the "seance" was called "The Search for his Spirit" and basically they went to places around America where Michael would have possibly "gone in spirit" because of their meaning.
They went to the theatre where the opening to Thriller was filmed, and sat in the seat Michael did with his date. The final location was the theatre and stage where Michael burned his head filming the Pepsi commercial, and they said they got their strongest "readings" of Michael's presence there ... in a place that he suffered the injury that possibly shaped his life? Idiots.
Acorah wasn't in the first show at all by the way, but the actual seance show lasted one hour. However, the seance didn't begin until around half an hour into the show and there was at least three full length commercial breaks, so it was lucky if there was even 20 full minutes footage of the "live" seance.
As for it being a "ratings hit", Peter Andre's latest show raked in some 1.2m viewers and was raved about ... so this fraud's seance only pulling in 600,000 shows it up for the sick joke it was.
And for one final comparison I dug up ... Jeremy Kyle, the UK version of Jerry Springer who slates Junkies, Alcoholics, Teenage Pregnancy, and general Chav's rakes in over 400,000 in the UK, and he's a lunchtime/daytime TV show for mothers bored while the kids are at school, or unemployed people too bored with their PlayStations.
600,000 for this joke is nothing to brag about, especially for Sky.