Few summer events are as reliable as Shark Week, which has been airing annually on Discovery for nearly four decades now. There are certainly faithful fans who tune in each year, and none other than John Cena was master of ceremonies this year. It's not unusual for Shark Week to recruit big names, as past hosts include the shark-phobic Shaquille O'Neal, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and Jason Momoa ahead of Aquaman 2. For the week of sharks in the 2024 TV schedule, though, Shark Week broke its own records with Cena at the forefront.
Shark Week's 2024 Record-Breaking Ratings
After the ratings were in for 2024, the numbers proved that Discovery had beaten its own Shark Week record. With 21 new hours of programming, Discovery Channel became the #1 primetime cable network (excluding sports and news) for those seven days with strong performances across multiple key adult demographics. All in all, Shark Week 2024 reached 25 million viewers once the numbers from Discovery Channel, Max, and discovery+ could be counted and combined. All of this marked a mighty rise of 10% over 2023. As somebody who was certainly among those 25 million, I'm happy to see that this year's programming was so successful!
Over the course of the week, seven of the top ten telecasts within the important 25-54 age demographic came from Discovery, including Expedition Unknown: Sharks vs. Nazis in Paradise, Jaws vs. Leviathan, Caught! When Sharks Attack , Great White Serial Killer: Sea of Blood, Great White Danger Zone, Makozilla, and Belly of the Beast: Bigger and Bloodier. I'm particularly glad that this year's installment of Great White Serial Killer was such a hit after what Paul de Gelder told us about filming it.
If you were watching live on Discovery, you may have also noticed heavy promotion for the natural disaster series In the Eye of the Storm that would premiere the day after Shark Week ended. As it turns out, all that promotion paid off to make the new series the highest-rated non-spinoff freshman premiere for the network in three years. Now, of course I'm not saying that John Cena deserves all of the credit for the success, but I felt like he was a particularly fun host, and one of Shark Week's returning experts only had good things to say about him.
What Tom "The Blowfish" Hird Told Us About Jon Cena And What He's Grateful For
Marine biologist Tom "The Blowfish" Hird returned to Shark Week this year after leading the investigation in last year's Cocaine Sharks special. For 2024, he joined forces with fellow scientist Leigh de Necker for 6000-LB. Shark to search for the fattest white sharks in the ocean. He also filmed some fun segments with John Cena that aired between programs this year. Speaking with CinemaBlend, he opened up about this year's special as well as working with Cena:
It's a shame that it's only one show, but it's a hell of a show. 6000 Pound Shark, I recommend that everyone watches it. Of course, I was very lucky as well to interact with John Cena, which was good fun. He's not that big. You know, he's quite a small guy, but he's a good bloke. I like his style.
John Cena is many things, but I don't think many people would describe him as "quite a small guy!" Despite his jokes, Hird sincerely made it clear that the actor was a pleasure to work with on Shark Week. He went on:
He's a lovely guy. I can't lie. Fantastic guy, and he's in unbelievable physical condition. But I am taller than him. I'm just saying! Taller than John Cena. Just saying. [laughs]
Tom Hird may consider himself "very lucky" to get to interact with John Cena, but he wasn't entirely lucky during 6000-LB Shark. While at the bottom of the ocean in a cage surrounded by sharks, there was a malfunction with the winch that was his only anchor to the boat waiting for him on the surface.
The malfunction happened after he let loose a "chum bomb" full of what sharks love to eat, meaning that he was surrounded by very hungry, very deadly, and very big fish. His team on the surface chose not to tell him about the problems to avoid stressing him out. All in all, not a problem you want to face! Reflecting on the experience, he told me:
That was fun, wasn't it? I'm forever grateful that Leigh [de Necker] didn't tell me what was going on at the time. That was good. I didn't need to know any of that. [laughs] You're at sea. These things happen. It is a tricky one because I think I'd rather have been in the cage because if I'd been on the surface and it had been Leigh down there, I would have been panicking. But because I was down there and didn't know what was going on, I was just getting bounced around all over the place. I just thought, 'Well, it's some bad weather or whatnot.' But hats off to the boat crew. They were on that hydraulic. It was interesting when I came up. Mask off, I was like, 'What's going on here? Oh, okay! I'm very glad to be back up here now.' But it's all fun and games at the fair.
Fortunately, disaster was averted and Tom Hird was able to laugh about the experience by the time we spoke ahead of Shark Week. It certainly made for a harrowing scene to watch from home, though, and I wish that enough people had tuned in for 6000-LB Shark to make the list of top ten telecasts for the seven day span.
Accounting for all of this, it's safe to say that Shark Week 2024 was a very big hit for Warner Bros. Discovery, and Max subscriptions even means that fans can check out the specials all over again via streaming. Viewers can surely count on Shark Week taking over cable again next summer; who Discovery recruits as host for 2025 remains to be seen.
