Discovery Channel’s Shark Week – speciality television’s biggest annual theme week – returned for an incredible 17th swim this year with jaw-dropping results. Canadians tuned in to the ultimate fish fest in droves, with Shark Week reaching an astounding 5.2 million viewers from coast-to-coast-to-coast overall.

The MythBusters team — Kari Byron, Grant Imahara and Tory Belleci — test a lifesize Megalodon model, dubbed “Sharkzilla” and created by Jim Shartis, to see how strong the massive shark’s jaws would have been. As seen on SHARKZILLA.
Photographer: Rahoul Ghose
Credit: Discovery Channel/Rahoul Ghose

Bigger beasts, gripping close encounters, and the MYTHBUSTERS guys meant that between Sunday, August 12 and Friday, August 17, Discovery Channel was the #1 Canadian (non-sports) specialty network across all Shark Week premiere time slots for total viewers, A18-49 and A25-54.

SHARK WEEK’S IMPOSSIBLE SHOT took an especially big bite out of the competition, becoming not only the #1 program of Shark Week 2012 with 357,000 viewers, but also the #2 Shark Week premiere telecast ever among A18-49. To be broadcast again on Labour Day, Monday, Sept. 3, SHARK WEEK’S IMPOSSIBLE SHOT features a team of wildlife cameramen en route to South Africa to try to capture a certain shot of a Great White Shark that no one has been able to get.

Shark Week fans also proved carnivorous on social media, commenting on the daily facts, videos, photos, and links, as well as participating in the #SharkWeekSwag giveaway. In fact, the majority of the week’s social conversation happened on Discovery Channel’s new mobile platform, with 79% of users commenting using their mobile devices. Discovery’s official Shark Week Facebook page reached 17,000 users! Fans can connect with Shark Week year-round at facebook.com/sharkweekcanada and on Twitter via @DiscoveryCanada and #SharkWeekCa.

*Details regarding Discovery Channel’s LABOUR DAY SHARK MARATHON will be announced shortly.

Source: BBM Canada