Syfy’s ‘Sharknado 3’ Has Social Media Bite

Syfy’s Sharknado 3:Oh Hell No! took a bite out of social media last night (July 22), reaching a unique audience of 4.5 million Twitter users, according to Nielsen Twitter TV ratings numbers.

The movie – the third in Syfy’s popular Sharknado b-movie series -- drew 360,000 tweets, easily outdistancing MTV’s Catfish: The TV Show and CBS’ Big Brother yesterday, according to Nielsen.

Syfy, which reported the movie drew some 2 billion Twitter impressions – doubling the 1 billion impressions for 2014’s Sharknado 2: The Second One – has already greenlit a Sharknado 4 movie to debut next July. The network also reported that video clips from the movie generated nearly 6 million viewers to date, including 4.1 million on Syfy’s YouTube channel.

Sharknado 3 may have devoured half of America’s celebrities, but there are still hungry fans and sharks to feed, so the adventure continues -- not in a galaxy far, far away, but on your television sets next July,” said Chris Regina, senior vice president of program strategy for Syfy in a statement.

From a ratings perspective, Sharknado 3 averaged 2.8 million viewers, down 27% from last year's Sharknado 2: The Second One.

R. Thomas Umstead

R. Thomas Umstead serves as senior content producer, programming for Multichannel News, Broadcasting + Cable and Next TV. During his more than 30-year career as a print and online journalist, Umstead has written articles on a variety of subjects ranging from TV technology, marketing and sports production to content distribution and development. He has provided expert commentary on television issues and trends for such TV, print, radio and streaming outlets as Fox News, CNBC, the Today show, USA Today, The New York Times and National Public Radio. Umstead has also filmed, produced and edited more than 100 original video interviews, profiles and news reports featuring key cable television executives as well as entertainers and celebrity personalities.