This past Sunday evening, Animal Planet and extreme angler Jeremy Wade’s new series River Monsters searched for a killer catfish on its second fishing adventure and captured a killer audience with 1.325M homes (1.4 household rating) and 966K P25-54 viewers, making it the network’s best-performing, regularly-scheduled prime telecast ever. Nearly two million (1.866M) P2+ viewers watched a new episode at 10 PM (ET/PT), outperforming last week’s series debut by 39%. With River Monsters, Animal Planet placed fourth among M25-54 and sixth among all of cable in terms of P25-54 delivery in the 10 PM hour. In prime overall, River Monsters ranked among the top 10 cable programs among M25-54 (#6) and P25-54 (#10). The series continues for five additional weeks on Sunday evenings.
River Monsters garnered stunning triple-digit ratings and delivery gains compared to the year-ago timeslot average among all key demos, including: P2+ 209% (1.866M vs. 610k); HH +193% (1.325M vs. 452K); P25-54 +360% (966K vs. 210K); M25-54 +508% (608K vs. 100K); W25-54 +225% (358K vs. 110K); and P18-49 +371% (1.012M vs. 215K).
“Two spectacular river adventures with Jeremy Wade and two amazing Sunday nights for Animal Planet,” says Marjorie Kaplan, president and general manager of Animal Planet Media. “River Monsters has struck a nerve with our viewers and between man-eating piranha and killer catfish, the series is the ultimate in frightening and breathtaking storytelling. We have a huge success on our hands — or our fins.”
River Monsters travels worldwide with host, biologist and extreme angler Jeremy Wade to solve freshwater mysteries, debunk myths and track down harrowing tales. Wade has made his life’s passion and career searching for a variety of aquatic vertebrae while navigating the globe’s waterways. Wade comes face-to-face with fear while trying to understand these mysterious predators with a taste for human flesh. He puts his life on the line to find truly monster-sized fish while globetrotting through Germany, Australia, Brazil and even the state of Texas. His remaining quests catapult him in search fascinating creatures such as alligator gar, wels catfish, bullshark, piraiba/candiru, and arapaima, all supposedly deadly creatures shrouded in mystery — especially their feeding habits.
River Monsters is a production of Icon Films for Animal Planet. Harry Marshall is the executive producer for Icon Films, and Mick Kaczorowski is the executive producer for Animal Planet.