ANIMAL PLANET'S "MONSTER WEEK" SCARED UP MONSTER RATINGS, BOLSTERED BY "THE CANNIBAL IN THE JUNGLE" AND "RIVER MONSTERS"

-- Scripted Feature THE CANNIBAL IN THE JUNGLE Devoured 1.6 Million Viewers; RIVER MONSTERS Season Finale "Jurassic-sized Prehistoric Terror" Reeled in 1.5 Million Viewers --

(June 1, 2015, Silver Spring, Md.) - Animal Planet's 4th Annual MONSTER WEEK (May 17-25) was a ginormous success, driven by monstrous performances by the network scripted movie event THE CANNIBAL IN THE JUNGLE and the season finale of its most-watched series ever RIVER MONSTERS, which delivered 1.6M and 1.5M P2+ viewers respectively on a Live+3 basis. Across the nine nights, Animal Planet averaged nearly 1M (951K) P2+ viewers, which is an increase of 13 percent over MONSTER WEEK 2014. The event placed the network among the top-10 ad-supported cable networks in prime with M25-54 and M18-49.

The Sunday, May 24 premiere telecast of THE CANNIBAL IN THE JUNGLE delivered 1.6M P2+ viewers and ranked among the top-three non-sports ad-supported cable prime telecasts on Sunday with M25-54 (#2, 475K) and M18-49 (#3, 417K).

RIVER MONSTERS, which is on pace to rank as Animal Planet's top-performing series for the seventh consecutive year, reeled an average of 1.5M P2+ viewers this season. This was capped off by a stellar Monday, May 25 season finale performance, which helped the network place #5 across all ad-supported cable networks in the 8-10 PM time slot with M25-54 and M18-49.

MONSTER WEEK helped Animal Planet score its most-watched week in prime in nearly two years (858K) among P2+ viewers.

"Now in its fourth year, Animal Planet's MONSTER WEEK has evolved into one of television's must-see events because viewers are completely captivated by the terrifying possibilities found in both the natural world and within our imaginations," says Rick Holzman, executive vice president and general manager of Animal Planet. "Our viewers wait all year for MONSTER WEEK, so we know that we have to pull out all the stops to make it epically entertaining and surprisingly scary."

Production Credits:

THE CANNIBAL IN THE JUNGLE - Produced for Animal Planet by The Original Content Group: Created and Written by Executive Vice President Charlie Foley; Written by Executive Producer Vaibhav Bhatt; RIVER MONSTERS: JURASSIC-SIZED PREHISTORIC TERROR - Animal Planet: Executive Producer Lisa Lucas; Producer Patrick Keegan; Vice President of Development Kurt Tondorf; Icon Films: Executive Producers Harry and Laura Marshall; Series Producer Andie Clare; Director Dominic Weston; Handel Productions: Executive Producer Alan Handel; Discovery Canada: Executive Producer Stan Lipsey

About MONSTER WEEK:

MONSTER WEEK is nine nights of programming that features some of the most terrifying beasts to ever have inhabited Earth and our imaginations. From Sunday, May 17, through Monday, May 25, Animal Planet terrifies the nights with the bone-chilling two-hour scripted movie event THE CANNIBAL IN THE JUNGLE, the RIVER MONSTERS season finale "Jurassic-sized Prehistoric Terror" and many other monstrous premieres.

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.

*All data is reported on Nielsen Live +3 data stream.