Super Bowl blackout gives big boost to 'Puppy Bowl'

Animal Planet's 9th annual showdown of cuteness gets big ratings bump during Super Bowl power failure.

Tue, Feb 05 2013 at 3:40 PM

Related Topics:

Pets, TV Shows

Photo: Animal Planet

Viewers not keen to suffer through the mind-numbing commentary provided by CBS's talking heads during Sunday's Super Bowl power outage opted for something a bit more engaging — Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl IX.

The network announced today that its 12-hour marathon of puppy football scored a record 12.4 million unique viewers over the course of the day, up 43 percent from last year's 8.7 million score. During the 30-minute Super Bowl blackout, Animal Planet raked in 1.1 million viewers, up 54 percent from the previous segment. Like last year, the event was also the most talked about cable event on Twitter, coming in second overall to the Super Bowl. According to a release, celebrities such as Steve Martin, Miley Cyrus, Zach Braff, Martha Stewart and Mandy Moore all tweeted support for the marathon.

Not surprisingly, all 63 furry pups from this year's starting lineup were quickly adopted. Something tells me Animal Planet could easily get away with making this a weekly series!

Check out the MVP from Puppy Bowl IX below.

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