Animal Planet benefited from Sunday’s Super Bowl XLVIII game as many tuned into the 10th annual Puppy Bowl.
According to Deadline, Budweiser’s commercial “Puppy Love” was not the only one to have success in the canine department. Animal Planet reported record ratings for their take on the Super Bowl. 13.5 million puppy-loving viewers watched the canine competition on a 12-hour marathon run.
The Puppy Bowl premiered from 3-5 PM ET/PT and averaged around 3.3 million viewers, a rise of about 24% from last year. It ranked number one in overall audience for Sunday. Animal Planet came in second behind Fox’s key demos, including 18-49, 25-54 and women 18-49.
A debate is brewing between the Puppy Bowl and PBS’ Downton Abbey regarding who was top dog, socially, for Super Bowl Sunday. Animal Planet believes that the Puppy Bowl X was on top of its Twitter game with more than 340,000 tweets during the premiere telecast, it trended throughout Sunday on Facebook and had an estimated 150,000 #PuppyBowl hash tags on Instagram. This Puppy Bowl marked the first time the network used live Instagram integration, featuring viewers and their pets in real time.
Even some celebrities got in on the action including Ricky Gervais, Rob Lowe, Lindsey Vonn, Pam Grier and Sean Astin, who supported the #PlayRudy movement. Even President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and First Dogs Bo and Sunny joined the Puppy Bowl social scene.
Downton Abbey claimed the second-place social spot on Monday stating the #DramaBowlPBS, campaign, which started on January 29, saw many user interactions including 31.5 million impressions on Twitter and 1.2 million post views, PBS said Monday.