Puppy Bowl X scores up big ratings for Animal Planet … ‘Fish Bowl’ drowns

Was there really any doubting at all that the Puppy Bowl was going to be some sort of enormous ratings sensation for Animal Planet? Personally, we don’t believe so. The show had everything in the world going for it, including years of hype and also all sorts of advertising. Therefore, it really shouldn’t come as much of a shock that it remains one of the most-popular things on TV.

Overall, the show brought in a total of 3.3 million viewers just for its broadcast starting at 3:00 p.m. Eastern, but when you put together all of the airings and puppy-related entertainment that took place over the course of the day, 13.5 million people watched. This is a grand improvement of 24% from last year, which is mostly just surprising to us given that you can see puppies having fun on YouTube on a regular basis. (Then again, there are so many good causes promoted through the Puppy Bowl that the last thing that we are going to do is complain about it.)

In other news, it turns out that there were not enough hipsters out there to ironically watch Nat Geo’s (parody?) Fish Bowl, which was literally just watching a goldfish swim around and do nothing (even if it was in high-definition). This special averaged only 27,000 people, the majority of who were probably just either very drunk, or forgot to change the channel when they left the room.

For those curious, the new Kitten Bowl over on the Hallmark Channel fared at least a little bit better. This event posted a million viewers, which isn’t terribly considering that like the Puppy Bowl, this is not that expensive of an event to make. You just need a ton of cute animals, a camera, and a set.

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Photo: Animal Planet