Speaking of puppies, Animal Planet’s thirteenth Puppy Bowl, which aired February 5 to coincide with the Super Bowl, was a lucky one. Among other ratings scores, the canine fest was up 45 percent in viewership over last year in the 12-17 demo, Patrice Andrews, Animal Planet’s GM, tells Cynopsis.
“Puppy Bowl was really up from years past and brought in a strong younger viewership,” she says. “It crosses every age group, we get middle-aged parents bringing their kids with them.”
While Andrews notes the network is “not actively after the family audience – we target adults because we air programming in primetime – they just naturally come. It’s in our DNA.” She says younger viewers likely are also finding content on via the Animal Planet GO app.