HISTORY CONTINUES ITS RATINGS SURGE WITH NEW SUNDAY NIGHT LINE-UP OF "AX MEN" AND "CAJUN PAWN STARS"

AX MEN season 5 premiere at 9pm: 2.9 Million Total Viewers ... Biggest Season Premiere Yet

CAJUN PAWN STARS series debut at 10/10:30pm: 3.6 Million Total Viewers

New York, January 9, 2012 - HISTORY's primetime line-up on Sunday, January 8 from 9-11pm produced stellar ratings for the network.

At 9pm, HISTORY's acclaimed logging series, AX MEN earned 2.9 million total viewers, 1.6 million Adults 25-54 and 1.5 million Adults 18-49. The season 5 debut now ranks as the most watched season premiere for the series since season one, and was up +33% vs. the season four premiere among Adults 25-54 (1.2 million).

The series premiere of CAJUN PAWN STARS followed at 10pm and earned 3.6 million total viewers, 2.0 million Adults 25-54 and 1.8 million Adults 18-49, through two consecutive 30 minutes episodes.

AX MEN is produced for HISTORY by Original Productions. Executive producer for HISTORY is Russ McCarroll. Executive producers for Original Productions are Thom Beers, Philip D. Segal, Jeff Conroy and Sarah Whalen.

Cajun Pawn Stars is produced for HISTORY by Leftfield Pictures. Executive Producers for HISTORY are Paul Cabana and Mary Donahue. Brent Montgomery and David George are Executive Producers for Leftfield Pictures. Joel Patterson is Showrunner for Leftfield.

HISTORY(R) and HISTORY(R) HD are the leading destinations for revealing, award-winning original non-fiction series and event specials that connect history with viewers in an informative, immersive and entertaining manner across multiple platforms. Programming covers a diverse variety of historical genres ranging from military history to contemporary history, technology to natural history, as well as science, archaeology and pop culture. Among the network's program offerings are hit series such as American Pickers, Ax Men, American Restoration, Ice Road Truckers, Top Gear, Pawn Stars and Top Shot, as well as acclaimed specials including Vietnam in HD, Gettysburg, America the Story of Us, WWII in HD, 102 Minutes That Changed America. HISTORY has earned four Peabody Awards, eleven Primetime Emmy(R) Awards, 12 News & Documentary Emmy(R) Awards and received the prestigious Governor's Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for the network's Save Our History(R) campaign dedicated to historic preservation and history education. Take a Veteran to School Day is the network's signature initiative connecting America's schools and communities with veterans from all wars. The HISTORY website, located at www.history.com, is the leading online resource for all things history, featuring over 20,000 videos, images, audio clips, articles and interactive features that allow visitors to dig deeper into a broad range of thousands of historical topics.