What is Shark Week?

Credit: Discovery

Shark Week, one of television’s biggest events of the year, has been a surprisingly educational one but not without some mild crossovers with DC Comics and others. Still, it shouldn’t be too surprising coming from one of the most high-budget educational networks: Discovery Channel.

While there are other similar networks, such as National Geographic and Animal Planet, Discovery Channel has been doing Shark Week since 1988. The programming has changed drastically and has even seen versions from competitors due to its worldwide popularity. Below, we’ve detailed Shark Week, what the event is, and other facts about the week-long television programming and some of its competitors.

Credit: Discovery/Raging Bulls

Discovery Channel

As stated above, Shark Week started in 1988, but it wasn’t until the last two decades that Shark Week became the worldwide phenomenon it is today, packed with celebrity guests, biologists, other scientific persons, and even celebrity sharks and other oceanic creatures and lore.

Since the first event premiere, the programming block has changed forms and produced content of varying proportions. Still, with the 35th anniversary next year, sometime in August, Shark Week will likely continue to show growth on the Discovery Channel.

Credit: Discovery/Great White Serial Killer: Fatal Christmas

Shark Week

Shark Week was initially started to fight the false information, lies, and bad reputations of sharks and similar oceanic creatures, mostly their interactions with humans, while spreading positivity around the creatures and encouraging others to learn more about them.

The programming has been incredibly informative since it first launched, but some have argued that the programming blocks have become too aligned with the lies and prospects of Hollywood. While specific programming has changed every year and the format, several programs have premiered a new extension year after year, likely due to the popularity behind the specific episode.

Credit: Discovery/Mechashark: Love Down Under

Shark Week Imitations

While there will only ever be one actual Shark Week, other nature and animal-themed networks have done the same as Discovery Channel and launched Shark-related programming to draw attention to their programming while riding off the literal wave provided by Discovery Channel. Animal Planet has a similarly styled programming block. Still, unlike National Geographic, Animal Planet has been part of the giant Discovery umbrella.

While the network has a much smaller presence, the overall branding has always been featured on Discovery Channel. Finally, National Geographic, the true nature photography and videography provider, hasn’t been as widely considered part of the Shark Week extravaganza entirely due to its ownership by Disney over Warner Discovery.

However, National Geographic has its competing block, called SharkFest, before the Discovery Channel event has typically taken place. However, as National Geographic has been a leader in nature information and discovery for nearly three decades, they certainly have some of the unique nature-related content under their umbrella, but nowhere near the focus on sharks that Discovery Channel has put into what is Shark Week each year.

Credit: Discovery/Great White Open Ocean

Shark Week 2023

Shark Week typically occurs near the end of July or August, so Shark Week 2022 edition has already happened. Still, the 2023 edition will jump out of the water faster than we know it and provide fans of the week-long shark programming with another blockbuster-style edition. As 2022 has already premiered, Discovery Channel is likely already halfway through filming segments and episodes of what will become the 2023 edition next Summer.

Most of the programming shown during 2022 has been recorded months, if not a year, before it premiered, so it’s always worth the watch to see precisely what worldwide events are referenced to pinpoint where or when a program was filmed. An example of this could be when 2022 had a diver get breached by a shark, when a shark breaks through the water at rapid speeds, catching air while tackling prey.

Great White Open Ocean, as the segment was called, engaged viewers with the story of a diver, Jimi Partington, after he nearly died after a shark breached the tank he was viewing the ocean from after the shark nudged it twice beforehand. However, that wasn’t the event’s entirety, especially for the diver. In 2020, Jimi Partington entered the water and was attacked by the shark, but when he tried to enter the experience again over a year later, he suffered from something from within, a stroke.

Following the stroke, the diver has had a constant battle with life and death. Miraculously, Jimi wasn’t harmed by the initial shark attack but instead has suffered from an interesting arrangement of internal struggles since the stroke. As with other danger-involved specials from the television event, after everything that happened, Jimi and his love for sharks and oceanic creatures weren’t deterred from experience at all, as he’s still dedicated to science.the programming blocks have become too aligned with the lies and prospects of Hollywood