LOS ANGELES – After a quarter-century of dorsal fins and drinking games, Shark Week remains a strange and celebrated event. The annual Discovery Channel lineup, which kicks off again Aug. 12, snared more than 26 million viewers last summer.
The tradition began in 1988, when Discovery aired a week’s worth of shark-oriented programming in hopes of drawing audiences on a slow summer week. It worked: According to Brooke Runnette, the network’s executive producer for special projects, the series’ 1988 premiere doubled Discovery’s prime-time average, launching a 24-year streak of increasingly high yearly ratings.
But Shark Week doesn’t strive to glorify shark attacks, which periodically make headlines along the coasts in hotter months. Against conventional reality television wisdom, Runnette said, the shows frame sea predators realistically, with great caution. Experts lace safety tips throughout each episode.
Sal Jorgensen, a marine biologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, teamed up with Discovery producers to shoot “Great White Highway” a program that explores movement patterns of the marine beasts, based on his research. (Spoiler: The Great Whites tagged by Jorgensen return to the same areas of the ocean year after year.)
“My hope is the programming will help the public develop a better understanding of sharks,” he said. “They’re not the wandering rogues we seem to think they are. If we know where they’re going to be at specific times, we can better avoid human-shark interactions.”
The overall quality of Shark Week keeps improving, Jorgensen said, adding he probably wouldn’t have signed on in the series’ early years.
