Shark Week 2013: Live Shark Week Talk Show; 11 Hours Of New Material

Shark Week 2013 kicked off on Sunday, Aug. 4, promising almost around-the-clock coverage focusing on sharks for seven days – 11 hours of which will be entirely new content on the Discovery Channel.

Highlights for the coming week of nearly-nonstop shark content include new documentaries about megalodon – the extinct giant shark – New Orleans’ freshwater bull sharks and rare deep-sea sharks. There will also be a new top ten “sharkdown” of the most dangerous shark species in the seas. New this year, will be a Shark Week live talk show called Shark After Dark, which will be hosted by comedian Josh Wolf.

Satiating the intense interest and curiosity about the villains of the sea, Discovery Channel’s Shark Week endeavors to entertain while providing education and incentivizing conservation of the seas. Playing off of 1975 cult horror film Jaws and the natural fear of sharks, the programming has its fill of foreboding music and grizzly reenactments of shark attacks.

Last month, SyFy aired a shark-themed original TV movie called Sharknado that undoubtedly built anticipation for Discovery's 26th annual Shark Week. The campy movie starring Ian Ziering and Tara Reid broke records for the niche network and generated quite a reaction on social media, getting 300,000 mentions on Twitter.

Keeping on the wave of sharks' success on social media, Shark Week has its own Facebook and Twitter pages. Sharktweeto, a segment that will air throughout the week, will highlight tweets about sharks and the Discovery Channel week that honors them.

The 2013 Shark Week will run until Saturday, Aug. 10.

– Chelsea Regan

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