Wire walker Nik Wallenda crosses over the Grand Canyon on Discovery Channel’s Skywire Live.
I think it’s safe to say that Discovery Channel gave viewers quite the heart-pounding and stomach-turning experience Sunday night with its broadcast of Skywire Live; a televised event dedicated to helping one man’s dream to walk across the Grand Canyon on a wire. Oh, did I mention the wire is only 2 inches thick and there are no nets or a tether? 178 countries and 12.98 million viewers watched as Nik Wallenda made his daring walk over Hellhole Bend, generating 40,000 tweets per minute (700,000 tweets total by the end of the show) and #Skywire taking the #1 spot in trends worldwide. Nik wasn’t the only daring one during this telecast; Discovery became a daredevil itself for allowing Nik to walk on the wire without any sort of safety net or tether (as a side note, Nik requested to not have these items. Discovery disclosed this information at the beginning of the show). Either this live show will become one of Discovery’s greatest achievements…or biggest mistakes. Thankfully, Nik and Discovery shared a triumphant victory. So let’s talk more about the social media stats shall we?
Lauren Nicole Miller 