Doco maker riding high with sales to US cable channel

United States cable television network Animal Planet has commissioned New Zealand natural history producer NHNZ to make a fourth season of quirky wildlife programmes.

They will be broadcast as The Most Extreme later this year.

Twenty new episodes are in production in Dunedin, bringing the total to 66.

Natural History New Zealand, which has traded as NHNZ since being taken over by Fox Television Studios, said the show had become a "firm fixture" in the schedule of the US since June 2002.

"The world is full of amazing and unusual animals, and people will always be fascinated by the way these animals act," NHNZ series producer Ian McGee said.

"We might be on the fourth series of Extreme, but we're only scratching the surface of the weird and wonderful world of nature."

The Most Extreme series will count down the top 10 of the world's most extreme animals and compare them with human athletes.

Another NHNZ series, Buggin' with Ruud, hosted by New Zealand television personality Ruud Kleinpaste, last week premiered in prime time on the Animal Planet channel.

- NZPA