Discovery Channel Canada has ordered up a second season of its original series Nerve Center.

In addition, Exploration Production Inc. (EPI), Discovery Channel’s in-house production company, has confirmed that season one of the Canadian-made series has been sold to nearly 140 markets globally.

Nerve Center follows a day in the life of a vital hub – for example, Grand Central Terminal or Atlanta International Airport – starting at peak, high-pressure moments and moving through the course of a working day, featuring and highlighting key personnel and behind-the-scenes operations that keep things flowing and functioning.

Tony Leadman, head of Worldwide Program Distribution for EPI, tells Playback that Nerve Center’s strong domestic numbers – and subsequent sales in global markets – can be attributed to the show’s strong format, similar in style to fellow Discovery ratings hits like Mighty Ships, another EPI production that is now in its sixth season and has garnered international repute.

“[Through Mighty Ships, we found that] our audiences were finding [behind-the-scenes stories] extremely interesting.  The average person would walk into Grand Central Station and never know inside the bowels of the station and underneath the main floor there are people there, and that these people are real characters and they take their jobs quite seriously,” says Leadman.

Beginning fall 2012, season two – for which production is already underway – will pick up with a six-episode arc.

An average of nearly one million Canadians tuned into the debut, six-episode season last spring. Ken MacDonald, VP of Programming for Discovery Channel, said in a statement that the show’s performance and positive reviews from both critics and fans make the renewal decision “a no-brainer.”