About Shark Week by Austen Allred
Swim with the sharks during Discovery Channel's Shark Week which is one of the longer running traditions of
broadcast television. There are few programs that have survived that
transition of traditional antenna television to cable television where
hundreds of additional options to choose from began to come forth. The
fact that Discovery was able to stay a popular program during the times
when it seemed like everyone you knew was creating his or her own cable
TV channel is a testament to its quality as a program, and few cable
programs have a history that can come close in length or magnitude to
that of Shark Week.
Shark Week, in fact, is the longest cable-running event in the world. Now, in fact, shark week is broadcast to over 72 different countries, and is shown in multiple languages. For more information about Shark Week and when it will be, make sure to check out http://swimwiththesharks.com.
The Beginnings
The Discovery Channel opened its doors in 1985, and Shark Week came around only a couple of years after that. 1987 was far from the glory days of cable television, so the idea of having a week’s programming dedicated solely to one topic was a risky vision. The viewership of the program, however, doesn’t lie, and Shark Week is now one of the most popular television events. More than 20 million have tuned in each year since 1995, and Shark Week 2010 set a Discovery Channel record by being the most watched shark week ever. Over 30.8 million unique people tuned in.
Shark Week Hosts
The hosts of shark week has become a big deal, and is debated and discussed just like the hosts of Saturday Night Live or other popular TV shows are. Some big names have graced the list of Shark Week hosts (see the full list at http://swimwiththesharks.com), including the two most popular Mythbusters icons Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman in 2005, Craig Ferguson in 2010, Andy Samberg in 2011, in 2007 and 2009 by “Survivorman” Les Shroud. Shark Week has even been hosted by the author of Jaws, Peter Benchley, before his death in 2006.
Adaption of Modern Technology
One of the less frequently told stories of Shark Week is how innovative the show has been with nearly every year. From its beginnings when it was one of the first week-long programs to be aired on cable TV up until 2011. The 2001 Shark Week was one of the first shows on television to be simultaneously available on iPod, iPad and web users. This adaptation of new mediums is likely one of the contributors to the large amount of viewers of Shark Week despite most other shows’ viewing audience decreasing.
Discovery Channel’s Sharkweek, as seen at http://swimwiththesharks.com,
has quickly become a mainstay in American television culture. What
started out as an experiment in the early days of cable TV has become
one of the most viewed and most discussed events in cable television.
Even through turbulent times of the television industry, Sharkweek not
only remained strong but grew in viewership to be one of the favorite
television events in America today.