Extreme Milestone for NHNZ

For immediate release 26 January 2006

Extreme Milestone for NHNZ

The Most Extreme, one of the world’s longest running wildlife documentary series, has reached another milestone as series five goes to air on Animal Planet.

Among the weird, wonderful, fantastic and funny subjects covered in series five will be Animal Inventors, Nature’s Medics and ‘Night Lights’. As we’ve come to expect, each episode will be packed with amazing animal stories, with a few crazy people thrown in for good measure.

Says series producer Ian McGee: “It's always exciting working on The Most Extreme because there are always new stories to tell. Every day we are still finding amazing research from around the world, which is why we're having just as much fun as we did five years ago when the series began."

The Most Extreme has been one of Animal Planet’s highest rated series since it first aired in 2002. Each storyline is simple: count down the ten most extreme animals for any given behaviour. The journey to find answers, however, is far from straightforward. The path twists between history, natural history, science, and trivia. You just never know what’s coming up next.

NHNZ managing director Michael Stedman says The Most Extreme was one of the first and best examples of the new way of telling wildlife stories to the modern television audience.

“Before The Most Extreme, most wildlife shows were slow and academic; they were full of great information, but were not well suited to the cable television environment. The Most Extreme came along and changed all that: this was wildlife television for the MTV generation.

“During its five series the quality of The Most Extreme remains consistently high; each episode informs, entertains and amuses in equal measure.”

Animal Planet Producer Clare Roy adds, “This is a first for me -- to work on a series of this nature and to produce with NHNZ’s finest. Working with Ian McGee and his team has been an absolute pleasure. A consummate professional and a multi-talented, creative genius, Ian makes my job effortless. I feel certain The Most Extreme will continue to garner high ratings for the network, and I hope the viewers will enjoy the new episodes as much as we do.”

The first episodes of The Most Extreme series five will be screened to North American viewers on April 24.

NHNZ is one of the world’s leading producers of factual programming embracing the genres of nature, health, science, adventure and people. With over 70 programmes currently in production, NHNZ crews work in locations around the world to produce a diversity of films for international broadcasters including Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, Voom Media, BSkyB, National Geographic Channel, HGTV, France 5, NHK in Japan and ZDF and Kabel One in Germany. Based in Dunedin, New Zealand, the company is wholly owned by Fox Television Studios.

ENDS

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