"PUPPY BOWL" REIGNS SUPREME ONCE AGAIN, REPEATING ITS CHAMPIONSHIP TITLE

"PUPPY BOWL XI" WAS NUMBER ONE IN CABLE, DIGITAL AND SOCIAL MEDIA ON SUPER BOWL SUNDAY

(Silver Spring, Md.) - The Seattle Seahawks couldn't hold onto their title, but PUPPY BOWL brought home the trophy once again, dominating a field of imitators and dogging all competition in cable with 10.4 million unique P2+ viewers. Animal Planet's PUPPY BOWL XI premiere was the number-one cable telecast across the day on Super Bowl Sunday among all major demos (excluding sports), including P2+ viewers (2.8M), HH (1.6M), P25-54 (1M) and W25-54 (659K). The network ranked number two in all of TV, coming only behind NBC, during its 3-5 PM ET/PT premiere in P25-54 and other key demos.

There's just no Super Bowl Sunday without PUPPY BOWL. A decade-long-plus, pup-culture tradition, Animal Planet's PUPPY BOWL XI is as much a part of the world's biggest sporting event as the halftime performance and memorable commercials. The 12-hour marathon featured the cutest pile up of 'linebarkers' and 'wide retrievers' to ever grace GEICO Stadium, and fur certainly was flying this year. The first-ever competitive scoring between Team Ruff and Team Fluff kept viewers glued the to the canine gridiron, with Team Ruff retrieving the ultimate title. Goat cheerleaders bleated and babbled from the sidelines, especially when pups were charged with 'interfurrences,' and a blue-haired, roaring Katty Furry headlined the Bissell(R) Kitty Half-Time Show.

In the social and digital arenas, PUPPY BOWL XI continued its championship reign as the number-one social non-Super Bowl event in all of television (Source: Nielsen SocialGuide), reaching more than 17 million fans, trending all night on Facebook and generating ten unique U.S. and Worldwide Trending Topics on Twitter. Celebrities didn't let the puppies have all the fun with many joining Team Ruff and Team Fluff, including, Drew Carey, Rob Thomas, Johnny Weir, Sophia Bush, Jim Norton, Billy Eichner and Patton Oswalt.

PUPPY BOWL XI had fans buzzing online with a lineup of social and digital experiences complementing the beloved event, which reached more people than ever before. Animal Planet's PUPPY BOWL videos - from the first-ever Puppy Bowl XI Pre-Game Show to the fan-favorite Puppy Profiles, game highlights and live cams - generated nearly 2.5 million streams, with more than 1.2 million accessed via social media alone. Puppy Bowl XI Fantasy Game participation was up nearly 50 percent from last year's inaugural league with fan engagement more than doubling.

Partnering with rescue groups and shelters across the country, PUPPY BOWL XI was responsible for approximately 425 pet adoptions and inspired thousands more.

ABOUT PUPPY BOWL XI PUPPY BOWL returned for its 11th anniversary on Sunday, February 1, as the most anticipated and cutest sporting event of the season. The 12-hour marathon event lined up a first-string, all-adorable cast itching to play in a winning combination of terrier tackles, canine touchdowns, puppy penalties and Fido first downs. Animal Planet's GEICO Stadium set the scene for the most incredible PUPPY BOWL ever, complete with interactive BISSELL(R) MVP fan voting and an online Fantasy Puppy League.

PUPPY BOWL XI and the BISSELL(R) KITTY HALF-TIME SHOW are produced by Discovery Studios for Animal Planet. For Discovery Studios, John Tomlin is the executive producer, and Michael Masland is the vice president of development. For Animal Planet, Melinda Toporoff is the executive producer, and Pat Dempsey is the associate producer.

ABOUT ANIMAL PLANET

Animal Planet, a multi-media business unit of Discovery Communications, is the world's only entertainment brand that immerses viewers in the full range of life in the animal kingdom with rich, deep content via multiple platforms and offers animal lovers and pet owners access to a centralized online, television and mobile community for immersive, engaging, high-quality entertainment, information and enrichment. Animal Planet consists of the Animal Planet television network, available in more than 94 million homes in the US; online assets www.animalplanet.com, the ultimate online destination for all things animal; Animal Planet L!VE, the go-to digital destination for round-the-clock, unfiltered access to the animal kingdom; and other media platforms including a robust Video-on-Demand (VOD) service, and merchandising extensions.