‘Space Launch Live: Splashdown’ Draws 4.3 Million Viewers On Discovery & Science Channel
Discovery and Science Channel’s simulcasted coverage Sunday of the return of the Space X Crew Dragon spacecraft from its two-month stint at the International Space Station was watched by 4.3 million viewers on the cable networks, Discovery said.
The strong numbers completed the networks’ own mission, after their two-hour live coverage of the historic launch on May 30 drew a combined 7.2 million viewers. Both the launch and landing repped the No. 1 telecasts for the day across key demos. Sunday’s coverage drew 3.4M viwers on Discovery and 1.0 million on Science, with the total cracking the top 10 for the day in all of TV in that metric.
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Discovery said its networks’ coverage of the SpaceX capsule splashing down – just south of Pensacola on Florida’s Gulf coast, at 2:48 p.m. ET — also fueled 5.6 million social video views on Discovery and 5.5M on Science, ranking them No. 1 and No. 2 on the day.
The SpaceX mission in the public-private partnership with NASA returned U.S. astronauts to space for the first time since the end of NASA’s Space Shuttle program in 2011, with the return of Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken marking the first such ocean landing with crew since 1975.
Space Launch Live: Splashdown was made in partnership with the Washington Post and its staff writer Christian Davenport, who co-hosted the special. It was produced by Storied Media Group, with its Aaron Fishman, Todd Hoffman and Michael J. Miller executive producing. Gretchen Eisele, Scott Lewers and Caroline Perez were EPs for Discovery and Science Channel.
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