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Discovery, known for its tentpole Shark Week programming stunt, is adding to the lineup this year with an extreme Elevation Weekend and Motor Mondays.
Shark Week will debut earlier this year with a July 5 premiere date, taking advantage of the July 4 holiday. Shark Week 2015 wants to expand its scientific coverage to focus on tracking sharks and further research them through on-air specials and multiplatform offerings.
Elevation Weekend will feature specials and documentaries about climbing, including the film Valley Uprising. Motor Mondays features a weekly lineup of “all-motor action,” with shows including Fast N’ Loud.
On the scripted side, Discovery has greenlit a miniseries about the history of Harley-Davidson and its founders, starting the story at the turn of the 20th century. Discovery’s new unscripted series include Pacific Warriors, Killing Fields and series spinoff Naked and Afraid XL. These will join the network’s successful unscripted shows Deadliest Catch, Mythbusters and Gold Rush.
Racing Extinction will bring the focus to the network’s natural history programming. The documentary comes from the team behind the award-winning film The Cove, and covers the activists trying to save endangered species around the world. Discovery presented Racing Extinction as a small part of a larger campaign of similar content on the network, specifically covering reducing carbon footprints and species extinction.
Discovery also took some time for its other properties, which includes TLC, the network of 19 Kids and Counting and My Big Fat Fabulous Life.
TLC aims to enhance its tradition of “authentic real people, compelling transformation and larger-than-life stories” with its new lineup that includes core genres of Family, Aisle and Style, and Life’s Milestone Moments.
The Family focus includes new unscripted series Long Lost Family, Hardly Royal and Quinceañera, while Aisle and Style will continue TLC’s wedding-related programming with Brides Gone Styled and Extreme Dream Weddings.
Discovery’s Animal Planet brand called this the year of “unpredictable and ‘unscriptable’ entertainment,” saying that its characters o the coming year “have a wild, untamed streak,” resulting in the network’s call for everyone to Live Wild.
Its lineup of River Monsters, Finding Bigfoot and the Puppy Bowl with programming categories called Muscular Conservation, People and Pets, Environmental Build and Natural History.
Investigation Discovery announced its first scripted miniseries along with big names coming to the network including Barbara Walters and Wendy Williams.
Walters will host a new series called American Scandal, in which she adds insight and behind-the-scenes details from her famous interviews. Williams’ Death by Gossip talks about stories that start with rumors “where dishing the dirt leads to a deadly offense.”
Director Joel Schumacher also joins the lineup with his series on hotel murders called Do Not Disturb: Hotel Horrors.
Science Channel is targeting Generation Science with this year’s slate of space series and game shows.
Secret Space Disasters joins new game show/science experiment Geek Out or Freak Out, then Short-Attention-Span Science is billed as scientific answers for the “viewer who wants to understand to life’s most perplexing questions in 163 seconds or less.”
Discovery Family Channel, formerly The Hub, unveiled a lineup that is meant for family viewing, including From Wags to Riches, Secret America and some programming tentpoles. August becomes Pawgust at Discovery Family, along with Summer Movie Madness and Project Thank You, then the network celebrates Back to the Future’s 30th anniversary with franchise-related specials throughout October.
Discovery brands Destination America and American Heroes Channel touted new “all-American entertainment,” with male-skewed Velocity introducing more on-air experts and Discovery Life focusing on medical mysteries for the coming year.
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