Shark Week 2026: How to Watch, Stream and the Full TV Schedule
- Shark Week 2026 runs from Sunday 26 July to Saturday 1 August on Discovery Channel, with three premieres a night from 8pm ET/PT — 20 in total. It opens with K-Pop Shark Heroes, featuring Ken Jeong and REI AMI.
- Without cable, the two direct routes are Discovery+ from $5.99 a month, which offers a free trial, and HBO Max from $10.99. Both carry the specials; only a live TV service gives you the broadcast as it airs.
- Exactly five live TV services carry Discovery Channel: Philo, Sling TV, DIRECTV, Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV. It is not on Fubo, Frndly or Peacock, which is the mistake worth avoiding before you subscribe.
- Every special is described below. The week is built around returning strands — Air Jaws, Expedition X, Expedition Unknown, Alien Sharks — and there is no overall host this year, unlike John Cena in 2024.
Shark Week 2026 is on now. Discovery Channel runs it from Sunday 26 July through Saturday 1 August, with three new specials a night from 8pm ET/PT and 20 premieres across the week.
Below is the complete night-by-night schedule with what each of the 20 specials actually covers, then the ways to watch it if you do not have cable — including the one distinction that catches people out, which is that not every live TV service actually carries Discovery.
When is Shark Week 2026?
26 July to 1 August 2026, nightly from 8pm ET/PT on Discovery Channel.
Each night carries three back-to-back premieres at 8, 9 and 10pm, except the closing Saturday, which has two. That is 20 new specials in seven nights.
What is the full Shark Week 2026 schedule?
All times Eastern. Titles as announced by Discovery.
| Date | 8pm ET | 9pm ET | 10pm ET |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sun 26 July | K-Pop Shark Heroes | Air Jaws: Red, White and Breach | Invasion of the Mega Sharks |
| Mon 27 July | Bull Shark Dinner Bell | House of Sharks | Biggest Mako on Earth |
| Tue 28 July | Jurassic Sharks | Jaws vs Orca | Chum Island: Catching a Killer |
| Wed 29 July | Expedition X: Atomic Sharks | Expedition Unknown: Shark Secrets | Alien Sharks: Untamed America |
| Thu 30 July | What Shark Attacked? | How to Train a Great White | Ultimate Shark Dive |
| Fri 31 July | Secrets of the Great White Kill | Sharkzilla Takes New York | My Strange Shark Addiction |
| Sat 1 Aug | Great White Highway | Thresher Shark: Stun to Kill | — |
Discovery’s own framing of the lineup is that it delivers “glowing sharks, Jurassic giants, record-setting stunts … and even, KPop”, which is a fair summary of a week that is not trying to be a science lecture.
What is each Shark Week 2026 special about?
All 20, night by night. Descriptions follow Discovery’s own loglines; where two published versions of a logline carried different details, both are included.
Sunday 26 July
| Time | Special | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| 8pm | K-Pop Shark Heroes | Ken Jeong and Grammy-nominated artist REI AMI use K-pop’s reach to try to shift how sharks are seen across East Asia, prompted by recent encounters near Korea |
| 9pm | Air Jaws: Red, White and Breach | Jeff Kurr, marine biologist Alison Towner and cinematographer Andy Casagrande document breaching great whites along U.S. coastlines — behaviour the strand has chased in South Africa for years |
| 10pm | Invasion of the Mega Sharks | Dr Neil Hammerschlag and Paul de Gelder track “Big Rose”, a record-breaking Atlantic great white, off Nova Scotia using new tagging technology |
Monday 27 July
| Time | Special | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| 8pm | Bull Shark Dinner Bell | Paul de Gelder — himself an attack survivor — and Rosie Moore look at what actually triggers giant bull sharks to approach people at Jupiter, Florida |
| 9pm | House of Sharks | Dr Tristan Guttridge and Kina Scollay test a striking idea off New Zealand: that great whites organise into competing “houses” and may recognise family |
| 10pm | Biggest Mako on Earth | Guttridge, Kendyl Berna and Keith Poe chase reports of 15- to 20-foot makos off Southern California |
Tuesday 28 July
| Time | Special | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| 8pm | Jurassic Sharks | CGI reconstructions of prehistoric sharks, cut against real expeditions — the week’s one deliberately non-live special |
| 9pm | Jaws vs Orca | Dr Tristan Guttridge on orcas displacing great whites: carcasses washing ashore with the livers removed, and the pod behaviour reported in the Strait of Gibraltar |
| 10pm | Chum Island: Catching a Killer | Dr Riley Elliott builds what is billed as the world’s first “chum island” to identify and tag the specific sharks behind attacks on Australia’s southern coast |
Wednesday 29 July
| Time | Special | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| 8pm | Expedition X: Atomic Sharks | Phil Torres and Heather Amaro investigate erratic shark behaviour in the Marshall Islands and whether the 1946–58 nuclear tests are behind it |
| 9pm | Expedition Unknown: Shark Secrets | Josh Gates on the first recorded shark attack in history, the USS Indianapolis sinking, and whether Scotland’s 1808 “Stronsay Beast” was a shark |
| 10pm | Alien Sharks: Untamed America | Forrest Galante hunts domestic oddities — glowing swell sharks, elusive sawfish — with the season pegged to America’s 250th anniversary |
Thursday 30 July
| Time | Special | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| 8pm | What Shark Attacked? | Tom “Blowfish” Hird, Rosie Moore and Kinga Phillips apply forensic analysis to unsolved attacks to work out which species was responsible |
| 9pm | How to Train a Great White | Dr Tristan Guttridge applies U.S. Navy dolphin-training methods to great whites in New Zealand, testing whether they respond to cues |
| 10pm | Ultimate Shark Dive | Red Bull high diver Molly Carlson attempts the highest freefall in Shark Week’s history, from a helicopter into a plexiglass cage ringed by reef sharks |
Friday 31 July
| Time | Special | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| 8pm | Secrets of the Great White Kill | Research arguing great whites adapt their hunting tactics in real time rather than running a fixed ambush — an intelligence story more than a teeth story |
| 9pm | Sharkzilla Takes New York | Dr Craig O’Connell on mauled marine life washing up near a nuclear dumping ground off New York, and the great whites and makos around the Hamptons |
| 10pm | My Strange Shark Addiction | Four shark obsessives, and what the replicas, tattoos and spending have done to their finances and relationships. The week’s one pure-people show |
Saturday 1 August
| Time | Special | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| 8pm | Great White Highway | Scientists racing to tag and install receivers as great whites push farther up the East Coast than previously recorded |
| 9pm | Thresher Shark: Stun to Kill | Dr Craig O’Connell and Aliah Banchik use newly found shallow feeding grounds to film how threshers stun prey with their tails |
If you only watch three, the ones with something genuinely at stake are Expedition Unknown: Shark Secrets (Josh Gates on the Indianapolis), Ultimate Shark Dive (a real record attempt rather than a premise) and House of Sharks (the only special here proposing a new claim about how the animals organise themselves).
How can you watch Shark Week 2026 without cable?
Two routes, and they give you different things. Discovery+ and HBO Max carry the specials on demand. A live TV service gives you the broadcast as it airs — which matters only if you want to watch at 8pm with everyone else.
| Service | What you get | Listed price |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery+ | The specials on demand, plus the back catalogue from previous years | From $5.99/month, ad-supported, with a free trial |
| HBO Max | The specials on demand | From $10.99/month on the ad-supported plan |
| Philo | Discovery Channel live | Varies by plan; some tiers bundle Discovery+ and HBO Max |
| Sling TV | Discovery Channel live | Varies by plan |
| Hulu + Live TV | Discovery Channel live | Varies by plan — the cheapest cut-down tier may not include it |
| DIRECTV | Discovery Channel live | Varies by plan |
| YouTube TV | Discovery Channel live | Varies by plan |
We are not publishing exact live TV prices here because they differ by tier and the figures in circulation disagree with one another. Check the plan page before subscribing, and confirm Discovery Channel is in the tier you are buying rather than in a more expensive one.
The mistake to avoid
Three popular services do not carry Discovery Channel at all: Fubo, Frndly TV and Peacock. Subscribing to one of those for Shark Week gets you nothing. Only five live services carry it — Philo, Sling TV, DIRECTV, Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV.
If you only want the shows and not the broadcast, Discovery+ is the cheaper answer at $5.99 with a free trial, and it also holds previous years’ episodes, which HBO Max’s shark catalogue does not match.
Is there a host for Shark Week 2026?
No, and that is a change. There is no single presenter fronting the week this year — a departure from 2024, when John Cena hosted.
Instead the week is carried by the people attached to individual specials: Ken Jeong and REI AMI on the opener, Josh Gates on Expedition Unknown, Molly Carlson on Ultimate Shark Dive, and the scientists and conservationists who recur across the strands. Whether that is a loss depends on how much you valued the host segments, which were always the most disposable part of the format.
Can you watch Shark Week 2026 in the UK?
On Discovery+ UK, but not as a week. The specials reach UK viewers through Discovery+ rather than as a simultaneous broadcast event, and they have historically arrived gradually after their U.S. premieres rather than all at once.
That means a UK viewer should not expect to follow the 8pm-nightly schedule above. Treat the dates as U.S. broadcast dates and the UK arrivals as staggered — checking Discovery+ UK directly is the only reliable way to see what has landed.