RIVER MONSTERS Season Premiere Scores Ratings High for Animal Planet

RIVER MONSTERS, Animal Planet's best-performing series ever, debuted Sunday with the most-watched-season premiere and also ranked as the most-watched network season premiere among key demos (975K P18-49, 639K M18-49, 605K P18-34 and 595K M25-54). The two-hour opener, "Amazon Apocalypse," caught 1.7M P2+ viewers, 1.2M HH and 915K P25-54.

Following the season premiere at 11 PM ET/PT, Animal Planet's first-ever live aftershow, RIVER MONSTERS: LIVE WITH JEREMY WADE, drew in a strong 1M P2+ viewers.

Fans also were hooked on River Monsters online and across social platforms, as the season premiere saw an 85 percent increase in Twitter activity compared to last season's premiere. River Monsters was among the top-five social shows in cable last night, excluding sports and special events, according to Nielsen's SocialGuide. RIVER MONSTERS: LIVE WITH JEREMY WADE continued on AnimalPlanet.com, which contributed to three times the amount of unique visitors/streams to the River Monsters fansite when compared with last season's premiere.

In the sixth-season premiere, extreme angler Jeremy Wade took viewers along as he investigated the sinking of the Sobra Santos - one of the Amazon's largest maritime disasters - with as many as 200 passengers losing their lives to something mysterious in the waters.

Animal Planet's River Monsters airs Sundays at 9 PM (ET/PT). The series is a weekly murder mystery, following Wade's worldwide search for harrowing tales of man-eating fish with the hope of proving these freshwater mysteries as tall tales or frightening facts. Searching for a variety of aquatic attackers while navigating the globe's waterways, Wade has taken his life-long passion and turned it into a full-time career. Wade's River Monsters quests have him diving and reeling in fascinating and mysterious creatures - all alleged man killers...

River Monsters is a co-production of Icon Films and Animal Planet. Harry and Laura Marshall are the executive producers for Icon Films, and Andie Clare is the series producer. For Animal Planet, Lisa Lucas is the executive producer, and Patrick Keegan is the producer. River Monsters was developed and created by Animal Planet's Charlie Foley.