On June 23, 2013, American high wire artist Nik Wallenda attempted to make history by being the first man to ever cross the Grand Canyon on a tightrope on live television with no net. The event was seen live in 178 countries across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Americas, and Asia Pacific, and shattered barriers across platforms. While Wallenda successfully broke a world record, Discovery smashed television, live, social media and digital records with its robust multiplatform offerings at SkywireLive.com and an extensive social media campaign that encouraged audiences around the world to join Team Wallenda. Leading up to the event, Discovery invited fans to immerse themselves online in the bold multiplatform experience, Wired In, at SkywireLive.com. Supersizing the epic live event, the companion digital experience included: · A 360-degree experience that allowed fans to Take the Walk above the canyon on their computer, tablets or smartphones · Views from five different live cameras based in the canyon · Interviews with Wallenda on his journey to Skywire. · A gallery of user-submitted photos, curated from Twitter posts with the hashtag #AweYeah, to celebrate the awe-inspiring in the world Accompanying the live experience, host Chris Jacobs invited viewers “backstage," providing real-time social updates during programming breaks and five additional camera angles - including two on Wallenda - during the walk. Host Chris Jacobs documented the web's response live from the Grand Canyon, as the live broadcast threw to him to read fan reactions and update viewers on the growing groundswell of web conversation. As the live broadcast went to commercial break, fans didn't miss a second as they could access the live backstage experience Wired In on their laptops, tablets and mobile devices, as Jacobs kept fans up to the minute on the heart pounding action. Ranking as Discovery’s highest-rated live event in all key demos during the main event, the historic event also generated 1.3M tweets on Sunday and ranked as the #1 most social show across broadcast and cable in the U.S. according to Bluefin Signals, SocialGuide and Trendrr. As Wallenda completed his walk, Twitter volume peaked with 39,618 Tweets/minute. Throughout the day, #skywire generated 1M mentions, and at 10:08pm ET, #skywire held seven of the trending topics worldwide and drove 71% of all social media comments surrounding TV in primetime on Sunday. The engaging multi-camera offering Wired In generated more than 2.1M streams on Sunday, peaking at 322,000 concurrent streams. Additionally, the site has generated more than 7M page views. Skywire Live’s multifaceted digital campaign developed new opportunities to engage fans across all platforms, creating a story line beyond the silver screen that seamlessly integrated linear and digital programming, and skyrocketed multiplatform experiences to new levels.
http://skywire.agency.discovery.com/ http://press.discovery.com/us/dsc/programs/skywire-live-nik-wallenda/ http://www.deadline.com/2013/06/nik-wallenda-skywire-discovery-channel-social-media-twitter/ http://variety.com/2013/tv/news/discoverys-skywire-special-dominates-sunday-ratings-1200501201/
