Second Season Of Animal Planet's Most-Watched Series In Network History -- "RIVER MONSTERS" -- Catches Super-Sized Ratings

Season Two Outperforms Inaugural Season by Averaging 1.5M P2+ Viewers in Premiere Episodes

Season Three of RIVER MONSTERS Now In Production and Premieres in 2011

Animal Planet's RIVER MONSTERS, featuring extreme angler and biologist Jeremy Wade, closed his tackle box for the second season on Monday night, and the network's best-performing series outpaced the previous season by setting new ratings highs and delivering more than 1.5M P2+ across its seven premiere episodes.

During its six weeks on the air, RIVER MONSTERS helped Animal Planet rank among the top five rated ad-supported cable networks in the Sunday 10 PM hour among P25-54 and M25-54 (excludes sports). The season premiere, "Death Ray," brought in more than 1.7M P2+ viewers and is the second-best regularly airing telecast for Animal Planet ever, only trailing the April 2009 premiere of RIVER MONSTERS "Killer Catfish" (1.89M). The sophomore season of RIVER MONSTERS outperformed season one across all key demos, including P2+ (1.5M, + 8%), P25-54 (803K, +12%), W25-54 (327K, +23%), M25-54 (476K, +5%) and P18-34 (395K, +21%).

Animal Planet has given a green light to a third season of RIVER MONSTERS, which is already in production with a projected launch date in Spring 2011. The new season will explore more killer fish in freshwater locales across the globe in New Zealand, Brazil, Japan, Australia, and many more exotic locations.

"We're absolutely thrilled with the performance of RIVER MONSTERS and look forward to seeing what Jeremy has planned for another mystery-laden season," says Marjorie Kaplan, president and general manager of Animal Planet Media.
Animal Planet's RIVER MONSTERS is a weekly murder mystery 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 the stingray, alligator gar, nile perch, goliath tiger fish, wels catfish, freshwater sharks and piraiba - all alleged man killers.

RIVER MONSTERS is a production of Icon Films for Animal Planet. Harry Marshall and Laura Marshall are the executive producers for Icon Films, and Lisa Lucas is the executive producer for Animal Planet. Charlie Foley is vice president of development for Animal Planet.