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[12/08/15 - 12:07 PM]
Discovery's Prime Time Premiere of "Racing Extinction" Is Most Watched Cable Documentary Film in More Than Three Years
Discovery further spins the numbers for Wednesday, December 2.

[via press release from Discovery]

DISCOVERY'S PRIME TIME PREMIERE OF "RACING EXTINCTION" IS MOST WATCHED CABLE DOCUMENTARY FILM IN MORE THAN THREE YEARS

Racing Extinction Premiere Night Grabs 11.6 Million Total Viewers in the U.S.

Film's Call to Action #StartWith1Thing Ignites on Social Media

The much anticipated global television event and Prime Time premiere of RACING EXTINCTION on Wednesday, Dec. 2 reached more than 11.5 Million Total Viewers P2+ for the U.S. simulcast in L+3.

Numbers are not yet available across all international markets; however, among those with reportable figures the current non-U.S. count is six million total viewers. This brings the current total viewership on premiere night to over 17MM and counting. Additionally, U.S. encores over the weekend were viewed by 6.6MM viewers P2+. Final reach numbers across 50 channel brands in more than 220 countries and territories will be in later next week.

The RACING EXTINCTION U.S. simulcast averaged 2.55M million Total Viewers P2+ and averaged 1.18 million Persons 25-54, which makes in the most watched cable documentary film premiere in over three years.

RACING EXTINCTION captured the attention of celebrities, activists, and policy makers and trended on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram on Dec. 2 during the premiere of the film and ranked as a top three top non-sports program in Nielsen's Social Guide for that night. 26.7 million impressions were delivered on Facebook on Dec. 2, and a total of 300 million Facebook impressions across Discovery's global campaign which began in November.

As part of Discovery Education's Virtual Field Trip, where students go beyond the classroom walls and into some of the world's most iconic locations for rich and immersive learning experiences, the RACING EXTINCTION Virtual Field Trip was seen by more than 200,000 students across the U.S. and the dynamic curriculum materials supporting the film's content, have been used by more than one million students.

Discovery Networks International partnered with Discovery/U.S. on an unprecedented half-year global promotional campaign and creative activations for RACING EXTINCTION that generated massive impressions and touched each major market in each region through media tours, film festival partnerships and large-scale consumer projections events that reached 2.2 million in-person and 3.2+ million online users leading up to premiere. Social and digital conversations with more than 105+ million views across all our platforms coupled with comprehensive on-air promotions across our portfolio resulted in meaningful local partnerships to maximize call to action messaging, including talent shout outs supporting #StartWith1Thing.

As part of Discovery's #StartWith1Thing initiative, Discovery's call to action to create a global movement behind the RACING EXTINCTION television event, Discovery partnered with numerous organizations that included Oceana, The Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife and The Humane Society International, among others, to help make a positive global impact on the environment ahead of the network's global premiere. Discovery leveraged its global premiere and additional platforms, including custom branded content, Discovery digital, social media and virtual reality and Discovery Education, along with our partners to ignite curiosity and global actions people can take to make a difference.

Ratings source: US data from The Nielsen Company, Live+3 for all but weekend encores, which are L+SD. Reach uses 1-min. qualifier, including all repeat telecasts across all networks. "Most-watched doc" claim uses 5-net 5-telecast simulcast and excl. non-films, doc series, and doc mini-series. Simulcast average is a sum of the 5 networks' 000s. International data from DNI, L+SD, P3+ or P4+ depending on the market.





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