Out of the 26 years Shark Week has been a part of the Discovery Channel, Shark Week 2013 has emerged as the most watched week in the franchise’s history. This year’s Shark Week ran from August 4th to the 9th and brought in roughly 2.12 million viewers during primetime hours, increasing to more than 3 million during the 10 o’clock showings.
Shark Week 2013 beat NBC’s NFL Sunday night preseason football to become the highest rated franchise among 18 to 49 year old men. Also, Shark Week’s new after show called Shark After Dark brought in more viewers than The Daily Show, Colbert Report, Conan, Watch What Happens Live, and Chelsea Lately on four of its five nights.
Shark Week 2013 was also ranked as Discovery Channel’s most talked about program via social media, racking up more than 2.6 million tweets from August 4th to the 10th.
Although this year’s Shark Week was the highest rated ever, it is still not the most-watched week in Discovery Channel’s history. The record is still held by the Discovery’s Raising the Mammoth special that ran in March 2000, averaging 2.35 million viewers.
