First night of Discovery’s Shark Week 2013 sets viewership records with “Megalodon” special

Although some fans on Twitter were bummed that Shark Week 2013 kicked off with a Mermaids-style “mockumentary” called Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives, its premise nonetheless was enough to get them and many others tuned in. Discovery Channel reports today that Shark Week 2013 broke all viewership records in the programming event’s 26-year history last night, Aug. 4.

Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives was, according to Discovery, the highest-rated and most-watched Shark Week program to date, earning a 2.60 P25-54 and 4.8 million total viewers in P2+ delivery. Over this same period in 2012, Megalodon was up 141% in the Persons 25-54 demo.

Last night, Discovery also debuted its first late-night talk show, related to Shark Week 2013, called Shark After Dark Live, hosted by comedian Josh Wolf. Discovery reports that Shark After Dark also did well in the ratings, up 62% in the P25-54 demo versus the same time last year and drawing in 2.1 million viewers.

On the social media side, Shark Week 2013 has already been a success, as well, with people buzzing about everything from whether the events depicted in Megalodon actually happened, to trying to figure out if the “marine biologist” featured in the special, Dr. Collin Drake, was any more of an actual marine biologist than George Costanza was.

According to Discovery, citing SocialGuide, Megalodon was the No. 1 most social show across broadcast and cable on Sunday, even besting the NFL Hall of Fame Game on NBC, and MTV’s premiere of Justin Bieber: Never Say Never. Shark Week conversation on Twitter grew 66% year over year in primetime, and late-night was responsible for nearly one million tweets for the day. #Megalodon, and #SharkAfterDark all trended worldwide on Twitter, and #SharkWeek and #AirJaws trended in the United States. Discovery’s SharkWeek.com site gained 6.3 million pageviews over the past three weeks, with more than 1.5 million yesterday alone (up 53% from 2012).

Shark Week 2013 continues with new (presumably real) specials each night this week.

RELATED: SHARK WEEK 2013 SCHEDULE

 

7 Comments

  1. You should know or if you don’t I will tell you. NEVER BELIEVE ANY THING
    ON TV! If you have the money you can say and advertise anything you want on tv, the networks don’t care if it’s true are not.

  2. ok…so you thought you got the big bad megalodon…you forgot you chumbbed for more than just one…i will make you a bet… if not other megalodons in the pack something else with it…thoes guys got lucky they did not get eaten when the shark cage was knock a good-one you should have had more cameras than the few you had…should have realized these things are deep ocean swimers…whatelse is down in the depths…this earth hold more secrets than we all know of…

  3. What a shame it is that no one can enjoy a show that is very interesting-WITHOUT A BUNCH OF SPOILED ROTTEN BBRATS spoiling it for everybody else.

  4. If this show is a farce, sad to say, I’m now wondering how factual anything else on Discovery is!

  5. Hope the actor who played the part of Collin Drake, got his big break, and did not have to go back to flipping burgers.

  6. Did anyone else notice the disguised “Downunder” accent to “Collin Drake’s” English? There are numerous incidents of his slipping back into that sharpness of vowel sounds.

    And how the fetch did they get film of a sunken boat, which, by the way, has no name?

    I haven’t Googled to see whether any of the instutitons with which this “documentary’s” talking heads claim to be affiliated. Frankly, I don’t care.

    BUT . . . could there still be a Megaladon alive somewhere in Earth’s oceans? Never say “never.” We know more about Mars than we do of our own seas.

  7. I don’t know about anyone else, but I watched this just to make a list of the sponsors I will be boycotting for backing a channel that takes 25 years to show us the true nature of sharks backed by facts and science; only to cash it all in for a Documentary with a lack of disclaimers which depicts sharks as man eaters.

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