Michael Jackson close-up, times 2

Michael Jackson may not sell records as fast as he once did, but the 44-year-old pop star can still draw a crowd to the ongoing unscripted reality show that has been his life since the public got to know him when he was just 5.

Some 15 million British viewers Monday night -- more than half of all people with TVs on at the time -- watched ITV1’s documentary “Living With Michael Jackson.” The two-hour (with commercials) tour, guided by Jackson himself, airs at 8 tonight on ABC. The program, for which ABC News was estimated to have paid nearly $5 million, will air under the “20/20” banner and covers many private aspects of his fantasy-land lifestyle. These include the surrogate-mother birth of his youngest child, his insistence that his children don’t need mothers, his failed sexual experience with Tatum O’Neal and his denials of extensive plastic surgery on his face.

NBC has its own “Dateline” special on Jackson, airing Feb. 17, and it is likely that Jackson will still be in the news by then. Jackson’s candid talk in the ITV1 broadcast of sharing his bedroom with young boys prompted a call Wednesday by lawyer Gloria Allred for an investigation by Child Protective Service in Santa Barbara. Jackson’s Santa Ynez estate is in Santa Barbara County. The Santa Barbara district attorney’s office, which handled charges a decade ago alleging that Jackson abused a child who stayed at the ranch, wasn’t immediately available for comment, but a spokesman was quoted earlier as saying the office would be watching the program “with interest.”

In the documentary, Jackson, who denied the accusation, says he paid several million dollars to settle the abuse allegations in order to avoid “a drawn-out thing on TV like O.J.[Simpson.]” Jackson also says of sharing a bedroom: “Why can’t you share your bed? The most loving thing to do is to share your bed with someone.” One 12-year-old, named Gavin, discusses his sleepovers on camera as he and Jackson hold hands.

The documentary is an examination that “20/20” executive producer David Sloan compares to peeling an artichoke, as ITV1 correspondent Martin Bashir, over the course of eight months, gets to the “essential nub” of the singer. “No one,” Sloan said, “has succeeded in doing this with any celebrity as controversial and reclusive as Jackson.”

ABC will beat by 11 days the NBC News’ “Dateline” broadcast. NBC announced its program first and has tried to cast its show as the “unauthorized” version of ABC’s “authorized” show.

Bashir doesn’t leave viewers with any ambiguity about how he feels. He repeatedly questions Jackson’s treatment of his children, including a harrowing trip to the Berlin zoo that turns into a paparazzi madhouse seemingly unfit for a 6-year-old and 4-year-old, who apparently never leave the house without wearing masks. The camera focuses in tightly as Jackson tries to feed a bottle to his youngest child, even while a scarf is wrapped around the baby’s face and the child is bouncing about on Jackson’s nervously twitching knee.

NBC executives have said that Jackson’s oft-changing face will be a metaphor for their look at his life, while Bashir settles on Neverland, Jackson’s estate and the Peter Pan hangout for little boys who won’t grow up.

Bashir gives Jackson plenty of time to talk, sometimes reluctantly, about his childhood, a time when he says he yearned to be playing instead of practicing, suffered beatings and ridicule from his father and shared a bedroom where one of his brothers was making love with a girl.

ABC’s “PrimeTime” will follow the “20/20” broadcast with an interview with Bashir and interviews with plastic surgeons who discuss Jackson’s claim that he had only two surgeries on his nose to enhance his breathing. NBC declined to say what new material it has.

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‘Living With Michael Jackson’

Where: ABC

When: 8-10 tonight.

What else: Interviewed by Martin Bashir, on a special edition of “20/20.”