“The Last Alaskans” may live in isolation, but millions of viewers have been joining them lately.
The Animal Planet docuseries has grown in total viewers each of its first four weeks on television, topping 1.7 million audience members with its most-recent episode, according to Nielsen’s Live Plus 3 Day Rating measurement.
And that June 14 episode actually ranks as the network’s third-most-watched telecast in 2015 to-date, only behind “Puppy Bowl XI” and the “River Monsters” Season 7 debut.
The Memorial Day series debut of “Last Alaskans,” “No Man’s Land,” was in a later time slot than the show eventually settled into. Its 10 p.m. Monday kickoff drew 935,000 total viewers, with 461,000 coming from the advertiser-sought 25-54 demographic.
The next three episodes ran in “Alaskans’” normal night and time slot, which is Sundays at 8 p.m.
Here are those numbers:
“The Hunted” (Episode 2, May 31): 1.68 million total viewers; 520,000 demo
“Winter is Coming” (Episode 3, June 7): 1.69 million total viewers; 487,000 demo
“Everything is Hungry” (Episode 4, June 14): 1.72 million total viewers; 563,000 demo
That most-recent episode of “The Last Alaskans” helped Animal Planet rank third among ad-supported cable networks in the hour, falling only behind AMC and TNT movies.
Overall, “The Last Alaskans” is Animal Planet’s second-most-watched show in 2015 to-date — behind only “River Monsters,” which is the network’s best-performing series ever.
While the real jump clearly came between Episode 1 and Episode 2, Animal Planet General Manager and Executive Vice President Rick Holzman told TheWrap that he is encouraged by both the big numbers and their short-term steady climb.
“The audience’s embrace of this uniquely authentic docuseries that follows the last legal residents of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is underscored by the week-to-week growth we’ve seen for the show,” Holzman said. “The early critical praise triggered strong word of mouth that established ‘The Last Alaskans’ as something different, which people would want to recommend to their friends.”
“The Last Alaskans” airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on Animal Planet.