Underwatertimes.com News Service - May 22, 2009 16:55 EST
jeremy wade river monsters

A second season has been ordered for Animal Planet's River Monsters

jeremy wade river monsters second season

River Monsters host Jeremy Wade with a monster fish

Animal Planet's RIVER MONSTERS, hosted by extreme angler and biologist Jeremy Wade, reeled in an average of more than a million households (1.05M) across its seven premiere episodes, making it the best-performing series in network history. The series averaged more than 1.4M P2+ viewers. Overall the series achieved triple-digit gains among all key demos compared to Animal Planet's year-ago Prime average: 1.05M HH (+158%), 719K P25-54 (+273%), 455K M25-54 (+469%) and 265K W25-54 (+135%).

Sunday's RIVER MONSTERS season finale, "Freshwater Shark," bit off 1.47M P2+ viewers, making it the second most-watched episode for the series in terms of total viewers. RIVER MONSTERS catapulted Animal Planet to rank fifth among all non-sports in cable among P18-49 (780,000 viewers) in the 10 PM hour. In addition, "Killer Catfish" on April 12 was the most-watched RIVER MONSTERS episode and is Animal Planet's #1 performing regularly airing Prime telecast ever among P2+ (1.87M).

Animal Planet has given a green light to a second season of RIVER MONSTERS, which will go into production this summer, with a projected launch date in Spring 2010. The new season will explore more killer fish in freshwater locales across the globe, including several in the United States.

On Sunday, May 31 at 2 PM, Animal Planet will be running a nine-hour marathon of RIVER MONSTERS, featuring all seven episodes, plus a never-before-seen two-hour special cut of "Killer Catfish."

"RIVER MONSTERS was a ratings monster, and we're excited to send Jeremy back into the murky depths to explore more stories," says Marjorie Kaplan, president and general manager of Animal Planet Media. "With over a millions viewers gripped to their seats every week, Animal Planet is delivering on our promise of break-through television."

Animal Planet's RIVER MONSTERS is nature adventure series led by host and expert angler Jeremy Wade, following his worldwide search for harrowing tales of man-eating fish, with the hope of proving these freshwater mysteries as tall tales or frightening fact. Wade has taken his life-long passion and turned it into a full-time career, searching for a variety of aquatic vertebrae while navigating the globe's waterways. Wade's RIVER MONSTERS quests have him diving in with and reeling in such fascinating and mysterious creatures as piranha, alligator gar, wels catfish, bullshark and piraiba -- all alleged man killers.