Discovery Channel kicked off its annual Shark Week programming with its highest rated show ever. Phelps vs. Shark: Great Gold vs. Great White drew an audience of over 5 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Shark Week special ever among the persons aged 25-54 demographic.
As a testament to the changing nature of television viewing habits Sunday’s special was also the highest live and on-demand streaming day on the Discovery Go app.
“In Phelps Vs Shark we enlisted world-class scientists to take up the challenge of making the world’s greatest swimmer competitive with a great white,” Discovery said in an official statement. “The show took smart science and technology to make the challenge more accessible and fun. All the promotion, interviews and the program itself made clear that the challenge wasn’t a side-by-side race. During Michael’s pre-show promotion, as well as within the first two minutes of Phelps Vs Shark, this message was clear, and we are thrilled with the audience and the engagement around the world.”
The episode, which utilized scientific explanations to explore various sharks’ methods of locomotion, drew short-sighted criticism from social media users because of its use of a CGI shark in its climactic scene.
“All the promotion, interviews and the program itself made clear that the challenge wasn’t a side-by-side race,” Discovery said in a statement.
“You can believe whatever you want,” Phelps replied on his Facebook page. “Everything was either presented on air during multiple interviews that I did throughout Shark Week or the beginning of the show. Sorry you feel that way.”
