It turns out that many, many people will watch if they think there’s a chance you’ll make a small splat at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. “Skywire Live with Nik Wallenda” featuring “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 and a whopping 13 million total viewers during the walk segment. These ratings shattering records across numerous platforms, including social media. The special generated 1.3 million tweets, driving it to become the most social show across broadcast and cable in the U.S.
The pre-show from 8:00 p.m. to 9:10 p.m. 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 to 10:20 p.m. averaged 6.43 HH, 4.77 P25-54 and delivered 10.68 million total viewers P2+. The Walk segment from 9:38 p.m. to 10:01p.m. 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 third best 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 Wallenda” broke records for Discovery Channel and beyond, with the historic event generating 1.3 million Tweets on Sunday and the special ranking as the 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 10:01 p.m. ET with 39,618 Tweets/minute. Twitter buzz surged in the 9:00-10:00 p.m. hour with 647,917 Tweets, and total Tweets for the day resulted in 1.22B potential impressions. “Skywire Live with NIk Wallenda” 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 10:08 p.m.
According to Bluefin Signals, the show also drove 71 percent of all social media comments surrounding TV in primetime on Sunday. Additionally, Discovery Channel’s premiere of “Naked and Afraid” following “Skywire Live with NIk Wallenda” trended at number one 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 (2.9 million 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 to 11:20 p.m. 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.