As
Nat Geo Wild prepares to mark its two-year anniversary this week, the network
announced four new series joining its lineup in 2012-13, including a new show
for Dog Whisperer Cesar Milan.
In
Leader of the Pack, Milan will rehabilitate
abandoned dogs and coach European families competing to adopt them. While the
net will have a new season of Dog
Whisperer with Cesar Milan in the third quarter, after that the host will
exclusively focus on Leader of the Pack,
though the channel will continue to air the library of past Dog Whisperer episodes.
Dog
Whisperer,
which moved to Wild from sister net National Geographic Channel last year,
has helped improve its female demos, and Milan's new series is part of a
strategy meant to "bring in a much broader audience of people who may not have
necessarily known that the channel was there or that are looking for a broader
entertainment experience from us," says Geoff Daniels, senior VP of Nat Geo
Wild.
Other
new series are Animal Intervention,
where animal advocate/actress Alison Eastwood (daughter of Clint) and wildlife
expert Donald Schultz rescue exotic animals from unhealthy living environments;
Alpha Dogs, about the training of an
elite force of canines to serve the military; and Ultimate Animal Countdown, which looks for the world's best animal
athletes.
The
net has also renewed three series -- The Incredible
Dr. Pol, which was its highest-rated series in 2011, Man v. Monster and Wild Case
Files.
Wild's
six upcoming specials include a look at sea creatures' skills in Kingdom of the Oceans and the returning Unlikely Animal Friends. It will also
bring back Big Cat Week (the net's highest-rated week) for its third year, this
year focusing on the rarest wild felines and adding quarterly specials for the
first time to make it a year-round event.
