Discovery Channel’s Skywire Live With Nik Wallenda Thrusts Discovery Channel Into New Stratospheres and Smashes Television, Live, Social Media and Digital Ratings Records

- Special Grabs 7.72 HH, 5.87 P25-54 and 12.98 Million Total Viewers During The Walk on Sunday, June 23 -

(Silver Spring, Md.) Last night’s much anticipated premiere of Skywire Live With Nik Wallenda, with tightrope walker Nik Wallenda, “The King of the High Wire,” making history as the first person ever to cross over the Grand Canyon, delivered 8.5 million total viewers P2+, and a whopping 13 million total viewers P2+ during the walk segment, shattering ratings records across numerous platforms, including social media where it generated 1.3 million tweets driving it to become the #1 most social show across broadcast and cable in the U.S.

The Skywire Live With Nik Wallenda pre-show from 9-9:10PM averaged 3.86 HH, 2.67 P25-54 and 6.25 million total viewers P2+ while the Skywire Live With Nik Wallenda main event from 9:10-10:20PM averaged 6.43 HH, 4.77 P25-54 and delivered 10.68 million total viewers P2+. The Walk segment from 9:38PM-10:01PM averaged 7.72 HH, 5.87 P25-54 and delivered 12.98 million total viewers P2+.

Discovery Channel delivered its fourth best Prime Time average ever with Skywire Live With Nik Wallenda and Naked And Afraid. It was the best night for the network since July 2010.

Earning a 4.77 P25-54, the Skywire Live With Nik Wallenda main event from 9:10-10:20PM ranks as Discovery’s highest-rated live event. It’s also the highest-rated special since Walking with Dinosaurs (7.99 HH / 6.16 P25-54) and Raising the Mammoth (7.84 HH / 6.40 P25-54) in March/April 2000. It bested iconic Discovery specials including: Planet Earth, LIFE, Flight That Fought Back and Nefertiti Resurrected. It stands as the #3 Discovery special of all time in multiple key demos including: HH, P2+, P18+, P/M/W25-54 and P/M/W18-49 ratings and delivery.

Skywire Live With Nik WallendaA had the world buzzing online and broke records for Discovery Channel and beyond, with the historic event generating 1.3 million Tweets on Sunday and the special ranking as the #1 most social show across broadcast and cable in the U.S. according to Bluefin Signals, SocialGuide and Trendrr. As Wallenda completed his walk, Twitter volume peaked at 10:01pm ET with 39,618 Tweets/minute. Twitter buzz surged in the 9-10PM hour with 647,917 Tweets, and total Tweets for the day resulted in 1.22 billion potential impressions.
Skywire Live generated numerous Worldwide, U.S. and other national Twitter Trending Topics, with #skywire generating 1 million mentions for the day and the special holding seven of the trending topics worldwide at 10:08PM. According to Bluefin Signals,
Skywire Live also drove 71% of all social media comments surrounding TV in primetime on Sunday. Additionally, Discovery Channel’s premiere of Naked And Afraid, following Skywire Live, trended at #1 in the U.S. and Worldwide and Shark Week shared the spotlight on Twitter thanks to a new promo that debuted last night, with #SharkWeek, #SnuffyTheSeal and Poor Snuffy all trending in the U.S.

Wired In, the online multiplatform experience at SkywireLive.com, invited viewers “backstage” with host Chris Jacobs providing real-time social updates during programming breaks and five additional camera angles – including two on Wallenda - during the walk. The engaging multi-camera offering generated more than 2.1 million streams on Sunday, peaking at 322,000 concurrent streams. Since the launch of SkywireLive.com, the site has generated more than 6.8 million page views (4.4 million on Sunday) and brought in 4.8 million visitors (2.9M on Sunday) with compelling short-form video, vertigo-inducing Take the Walk 360-degree interactive and more.

Skywire Live With Nik Wallenda was seen live in 178 countries across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Americas, and Asia Pacific.

Last night’s premiere of Naked And Afraid from 10:20-11:20PM delivered 2.75 HH, 2.06 P25-54, and 4.16m P2+. It is the highest rated series premiere in 2013, and the second highest series premiere in the history of the network, behind only the 2012 series premiere of Amish Mafia. An all new episode of Naked And Afraid will air in its regular timeslot on Sunday, June 30 from 10-11PM.

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