Thirteen million viewers watched Nik Wallenda’s televised high-wire walk across the Colorado River Gorge, breaking both media and high-wire records.
The stunt was filmed live and broadcast by the Discovery Channel.
The quarter-mile walk on the high-wire, completed without a harness, was the first across the Colorado River Gorge.
The broadcast began with 8.5 million viewers, jumping to a full 13 million once the actual walk began, Deadline Hollywood reported.
With 1.3 million tweets, the walk became the top social show on broadcast and cable in the United States.
Walking on a two-inch-thick steel cable wire 1,500 feet up in the air, Wallenda was higher than the Empire State Building than is tall.
Though taking a brief break from praise to thank Discovery Channel while walking, throughout most of his stunt Wallenda thanked God and prayed.
“Oh, I praise you, Jesus. Lord, help this cable to calm down — command it,” he said while walking.
During the last legs of his walk, Wallenda blew a kiss to his followers, flashed a thumbs up, knelt down to thank God one more time, and ran to safety.