Leaving Neverland a favourite with American, British viewers

Leaving Neverlandis heading up the charts for U.S. and Britishnetworks.

The unsparing documentary about Michael Jackson and his alleged sexual abuse is already the third most-watched documentary of the past decade at HBO, the U.S. cable network, which takes pride in its documentary schedule.

Across the pond, free-to-air network Channel 4, which produced the documentary filmalong with HBO, said Leaving Neverlandhas broken streaming records,Variety reported.

For HBO, Leaving Neverlandis likely to surpass Bright Lights,the movie about Debbie Reynolds and her daughter Carrie Fisher, which is currently in second place.

The first half of the four-hour program on Jackson has been seen by 3.67 million people in the United States, the Nielsen company said. The second half stands at 2.45 million. Those totals are expected to go up as people catch up with the program through delayed viewing.

In Britain, the first half averaged2.1 million viewers, while the second half averaged 1.9 million when the film aired last week, Variety reported.

HBO's most-watched documentary over the past decade is Going Clearabout Scientology.