When Elivs died the world stopped and didn't want to believe it could be true.
When Michael died we all busted out our best pedophile jokes and his own father tried to find a way to milk one last dime out of his strange little son.
Ummm.....on what planet were you last year? Jackson's death DOMINATED THE NEWS for over a month. Heck, they even bumped tributes to Farah Fawcett, who has passed away earlier that day, upon learning of Jackson's passing. Half the radio stations where I live were playing Jackson's songs ALL DAY. We had a congressmen complaining about serious issues that needed to be addressed on air. But, they couldn't get any air time, because the news network were all locked on Jackson. Even major press conferences by President Obama couldn't get Michael Jackson bumped off the air.
His funeral gobbled up all three major networks and all the cable news networks as well. MTV did special after special after him, stating how Jackson changed the face of music videos and entertainment, especially for black artists, as MTV was originally designed to be an outlet for rock music. The folks there talk about how initially they wouldn't even play Jackson's videos. When they finally did, begrudingly, business really picked up. They went from not wanting to even air his videos to breaking their necks to get first crack at them.