Discovery Channel Archives - Page 23 of 28

“Survivorman” Les Stroud returns to Discovery Channel

August 2, 2012 Jeff Pfeiffer

After a nearly four-year absence, filmmaker and outdoor adventurer Les Stroud returns to Discovery Channel Aug. 19 with new episodes of his series, Survivorman. As before, Stroud will again be venturing into the wild with no food, no water and no crew, relying on his years of training, raw instincts and sheer will to survive. He films each journey himself, dragging 65 pounds of camera gear every step of the way. This time, Stroud spends 10 days surviving alone in some of the world’s harshest environments, with each location playing out in two one-hour episodes: “Mexico” Part 1 premieres Aug. […]

Discovery Channel’s Shark Week turns 25

July 31, 2012 Jeff Pfeiffer

Most sharks need to keep swimming to survive, and just as these fascinating fish keep on moving forward, so too does Discovery Channel’s annual summer programming event honoring them — Shark Week, which celebrates its 25th anniversary when it kicks off Aug. 12. The first ever Shark Week program, Caged in Fear, aired on Discovery July 17, 1988. In the still-young world of cable TV in the late 1980s, Discovery was looking for innovative ways to draw viewers in to the network, eventually playing off people’s intense curiosity about the natural world — in particular, predators such as sharks — […]

5 Steps To Launching a Successful TV Network

July 9, 2012 Channel Guide Contributor

Think You Could Launch A Network? These People Have, And They Share Why It’s So Hard, Even For Oprah. By Stacey Harrison & Athena Voulgaropoulos No one is immune from the multitude of challenges that come with launching a new TV network. Not even Oprah Winfrey, whose struggles getting OWN up and running have been breathlessly detailed in the media over the past few months, or Al Gore, whose efforts to take Current into the big time hit a major roadblock with the ugly departure of Keith Olbermann. So how does it work? What are the essential components needed to […]

Discovery to show off “Stephen Hawking’s Grand Design”

June 5, 2012 StayTuned Staff

Likely ever since humans have been walking upright on this planet, people have been asking the question of why we’re here, and whether or not there’s a meaning to our existence. Over the eons — and particularly in the last few centuries — we’ve accreted vast amounts of knowledge about who we are and where we are in the universe, but we’re still asking many of the same basic questions: What are we humans, really? Why does the universe, with all of its incomprehensible forces, seem to be balanced just so to allow life to exist? Professor Stephen Hawking draws […]

Discovery Channel’s “Fast n’ Loud” ready to peel off the line

June 4, 2012 StayTuned Staff

Most of us have at some point or other driven past a garage or farm where, somewhere on the premises, a neglected, rusted-out old car sits. Usually we’ll think to ourselves, “That must have been a great car back in its day,” or maybe, “Would be nice if they’d restore it, or if at least someone would.” Well, someone is out there, and they’re coming to Discovery Channel in a new car restoration series, Fast n’ Loud, premiering Wednesday, June 6 at 10pm ET/PT. Richard Rawlings and Aaron Kaufmann, the two gents at the center of Fast n’ Loud, are […]

“Flying Wild Alaska” back for Season 3 in June

May 23, 2012 Jeff Pfeiffer

Discovery Channel’s Flying Wild Alaska will return for Season 3 starting June 8, airing Fridays at 10pm ET/PT. The series continues to chronicle how the Tweto family — husband and wife Jim and Ferno, and their daughters Ariel (pictured above) and Ayla — provide the only lifeline to the small, isolated communities of northern Alaska via their regional airline, Era Alaska. According to a press release, in Season 3, the Twetos and Era Alaska’s pilots operate in the worst weather that Alaska has seen in decades. Among other Season 3 highlights indicated in the release: · Ariel Tweto continues her […]

Discovery special presents details on classified bin Laden intel

April 27, 2012 Jeff Pfeiffer

On May 1 — one day before the first anniversary of Operation Neptune Spear, the special operations mission that led to the killing of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden — Discovery Channel will premiere the one-hour special Secrets of Bin Laden’s Lair. The program reports on currently classified intelligence seized during the May 2, 2011, raid on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan (pictured above the day after the raid), and is narrated by NBC News correspondent Harry Smith. When the United States Navy SEALs killed bin Laden during the operation, they captured a prize far greater and more valuable […]

“Outlaw Empires” and “The Devils Ride” take a walk on the dark side

April 27, 2012 StayTuned Staff

It’s almost becoming a genre unto itself. Hunter S. Thompson famously befriended and wrote about the lives of ’60s motorcycle gang members in his now-classic Hell’s Angels. Bill Buford ran with England’s football hooligans in the early ’80s and described the game-day mob mentality that brought pandemonium to Britain’s streets and elsewhere in his book Among the Thugs. Now along come two series devoted to exploring the modern-day outlaw culture, both from Discovery Channel: The Devils Ride, premiering May 8 at 10pm ET/PT and Kurt Sutter’s Outlaw Empires, premiering May 14 at 10pm ET/PT. Both series aim to get inside […]

Discovery brings you “World’s Scariest Plane Landings”

April 23, 2012 StayTuned Staff

Just about anyone who’s ever flown in an airplane has probably thought it at some point or other, if not every time: The thought that you might not survive this flight. It usually hits me during take-off and especially at landing. So far, I’ve been fortunate — aside from one instance in which the plane that brought me back to Chicago actually bounced rather spectacularly on the icy runway (inducing paroxysms of terror throughout the cabin and even a nerve-shattering scream from one hysterical passenger), landing has generally been a pretty smooth affair, as it is for most of the […]

Tim and Tickle of “Moonshiners” star in “Cannonball Run” spinoff special (video)

April 17, 2012 Jeff Pfeiffer

Discovery Channel’s series Moonshiners follows the real story of those who brew their “shine” — often in the woods near their homes in Appalachia using camouflaged equipment — and the local authorities who try to keep them honest. Two of the more popular characters from the show will be featured in an upcoming special on the network, in which they are billed as a “real life Bo and Luke Duke.” Tim and Tickle (hey, it could be worse; they could be named Coy and Vance) star in Cannonball Run, premiering April 18 at 10pm E/P on Discovery Channel. On the […]