Discovery US announces shows across networks

MUMBAI: US non-fiction broadcaster Discovery has announced upcoming new and returning series across its portfolio of US Networks, including Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, Science, Investigation Discovery and Velocity.

There?s the power of the presidency and then there?s the power of the men behind the president. Discovery Channel lifts the curtain for the extraordinary behind the scenes history of the White House Chiefs of Staff in ?The Presidents? Gatekeepers?, a 2013 world premiere television special event.

From the filmmaking team of brothers Gedeon and Jules Naudet, news producer Chris Whipple and Peacock Productions comes a series looking at the key moments, the quiet conversations, back room bargains and heated debates that made history and have never been heard before until now. In addition, White House photographer David Hume Kennerly serves as producer.

Battleground: Rhino Wars:

The world renowned Greater Kruger area of South Africa, just north of Johannesburg, is the new ground zero in a war to protect magnificent creatures on the edge of extinction.

Rhinoceroses are being hunted to death by poachers who will stop at nothing to kill them just to take their horns. The death toll is astonishing; each year, nearly 500 rhinos are killed with baby rhinos and calves separated from their mothers and left to fend on their own.

The human toll too is steep. More than 100 park rangers have been killed by these poachers in the battle to halt these criminals. The situation is worsening. Park rangers and security forces are desperate for help. And now four U.S. special forces veterans have come to help fight for the rhinos.

Beginning on 7 March Animal Planet will be embedded in ?Battleground: Rhino Wars, a three-part mini-series that documents this conflict that is centered on the worldwide commercial demand for rhino horns, an exotic commodity that?s more valuable than gold on the black market.

The mini-series reveals the conflict between blood-thirsty poachers and one of South Africa?s anti-poaching units, which has recruited armed forces to stop the illegal, lucrative trade of rhino horns. Cameras reveal a bloody war that these elite U.S. warriors find themselves fighting, in an area where both rhinos and people are being slaughtered with increasing regularity.

Four current and former members of the U.S. Special Ops (Navy Seals and a Green Beret) have been recruited and brought in to help the security forces. Together, they will survey the situation, train the anti-poaching corps, exchange tactical information and go on the front lines to help defeat these ruthless criminals before the rhinos are brought to total extinction.

Science Channel meanwhile will kick off this month ?Stuff You Should Know? - a new genre-bending television series about a real podcast that?s set in a fictional world. Let us explain?Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant are two real guys - uber-popular podcasters and actual Discovery Communications employees. Their podcast, also called Stuff You Should Know, is in the top ten on iTunes with more than five million monthly downloads. On 19 January Science Channel will follow Josh and Chuck inside and outside the recording booth with theseries that combines all the informational nuggets of their podcast and wraps them in deadpan mockumentary-style humour. Along for the ride are guests making cameo appearances, including John Hodgman, Sarah Silverman, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Rufus Wainwright, and Michio Kaku.