Shark Week and Sharkfest execs reveal how…
They take a chew out of summer season TV.
Between Discovery’s Shark Week and National Geographic’s SharkFest, for a long time, shark-related programming has been the apex predator dominating TV in the new season.
“It is our Super Bowl,” Joseph Schneier, the SVP of Production and Development at Discovery, informed The Post.
A photograph from Discovery’s “Air Jaws The Hunt for Colossus.” Discovery
He added, “It’s our best week of the summer every year. It’s often the highest-rated thing on cable that week. We owe a little credit to ‘Jaws,’ of course.”
Last 12 months, per Discovery, 25 million viewers tuned in to Shark Week.
He defined that the 1975 Steven Spielberg film “created this idea that sharks are super interesting, in the American consciousness.”
Schneier stated that shark-related programming is “the perfect kickoff to the summer. As summertime comes along in America, people think about beaches, the ocean in general, and shark stories. Thirty-seven years ago, when we started, we were following a national trend that was already happening in local news.”
A photograph from Shark Week’s “Dancing With Sharks.” Discovery
A “SharkFest” picture of a
Blue shark at night time in the offshore waters of the Gulf of Maine. Photo by Brian Skerry/National Geographic Image Collection
Shark Week on Discovery kicks off this 12 months on Sunday, July 20 (starting at 8 p.m. ET with “Dancing With Sharks,” hosted by former “Dancing With the Stars” host Tom Bergeron).
The inaugural Shark Week was in July 1988.
“We’ve been doing this for so long that the latest crop of scientists that we have all grew up watching Shark Week,” he defined.
A diver feeds a shark on “Dancing With Sharks.” Discovery
A photograph from Nat Geo’s “Investigation Shark Attack.” NatGeo
SharkFest on National Geographic began in 2012, and is presently airing with over 25 hours of shark-related programming on Nat Geo, Disney+, and Hulu.
Per Nat Geo, final 12 months’s SharkFest racked up over 69 million hours of viewing (including streaming on Hulu and Disney+).
Shark Week’s programming also contains scientists and marine biologists, but it has more playful choices such as “Dancing With Sharks,” “Great White intimacy Battle,” “Attack of the Devil Shark,” and “Frankenshark,” while SharkFest’s programming has a more academic tone.
A shark in “Investigation Shark Attack.” NatGeo
Shark Fest’s 2025 lineup has included over 25 hours of shark-related programming, such as “Sharks of the North,” “Investigation Shark Attack,” “Sharks Up Close with Bertie Gregory,” and documentary specials about “Jaws” in honor of the film’s fiftieth anniversary,” such as “Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story.”
Janet Han Vissering, SVP of Development & Production at National Geographic Partners, also credited the film “Jaws” for the public’s curiosity in sharks.
“I think that that movie brought out this mysterious animal and brought it front and center,” she informed The Post. “It became the next bit of a phenomenon over the last 50 years.”
A diver with a shark in Discovery’s “How to Survive A Shark Attack.” Discovery
She added that there are two primary “lanes” of how people really feel about sharks.
“You either became somebody who was fascinated from a biological science approach…And it spurred this momentum for the area of shark biology to thrive. I talk to a lot of shark biologists who say, ‘Actually, ‘Jaws’ spurred me to be interested in that species.’”
As for the second “lane,” of people’s method to sharks: “There was something to be scared for, in the ocean. I think it became something that people were fascinated about. ‘Is it coming after me? What’s my relationship to this being?’”
A gray reef shark emerges from an explosion of plankton-eating fish at Vostok Island. Photo by Enric Sala/National Geographic Image Collection
She added that when people take seaside holidays, the thought of the shark has change into “synonymous with summer.”
Is there a rivalry between Shark Week and SharkFest?
Han Vissering informed The Post, “We try to run our own race. We want to lead, and, hopefully, people chase us, rather than us chasing after anyone else. Well done on Discovery to create Shark Week. And then, we came along.”
An oceanic white tip shark. Andy Mann
“We felt that there was still room for us to put together a lineup of great shark shows that had a slightly different angle, because of the access that we had with our scientists. We had a slightly different approach, and we’ve been thriving with that,” she shared.
Schneier informed The Post that because the neighborhood of people who make shark reveals is small, “we’re all friends.”
He added, “We believe the audience remembers who started it all…Shark programming and Shark Week are kind of synonymous now, which is amazing.”
However, he quipped, “In some ways, it’s ‘all boats rise,’ to use a water pun.”
Schneier stated that for both Shark Week and SharkFest, “The important thing is we’re [both] telling great stories about these cool creatures, and pushing a message of ocean conservation.”
We present you with the trending topics. Get the best newest Entertainment information and content material on our web site day by day.
