The world needs love. The hallmark makes money.
Hallmark, like various AI systems, learns and parses syntactic terms. In “A Scottish Merry Christmas”, Chabert’s character has a love interest, and in the Hallmark (and Circus) tradition, he is a kind, sensitive, and helpful person. However, unlike many Hallmark heroines, she does not leave a high-profile big-city career for an ostensibly more substantive small-town life. Chabert’s character believes she can stay in Scotland if she can run her own medical practice. The “Party of Five” reunion performance was exaggerated. Taking into account all ad-supported cable, “A Merry Scottish Christmas” was the most-watched movie of 2023. Its core viewers included women in key categories favored by advertisers, and the demographic breakdown is broader than what many consider Hallmark’s viewership. : “NCIS” fans who shake the cane.
What became a cultural juggernaut began as a postcard marketing scheme. Joyce, Rowley, and William Hall were born into a poor family in Nebraska in the late 19th century, and by 1911, they owned and operated a small business called the Hall Book Store. There they sold, among printed goods and other gifts, “Christmas letters.” One advertisement at the time described the letters as “adorable and elegant folders containing beautiful Christmas sentiments and slogans.” This snow globe spirit lives on at Hallmark to this day. By the late 1940s, the company was sponsoring a radio show for Reader’s Digest on CBS, but soon entered the entertainment business on its own. Her “Hallmark Playhouse” radio show was turned into “Hallmark Hall of Fame,” a series of television specials that began in 1951.
In the early days, Hallmark specials aired several times a year, and there was always one in December — Christmas card season. Producing everything from Arthur Miller’s George C. Scott to Cicely Tyson in “The Marva Collins Story,” the still-active Hallmark Hall of Fame, with 78 Emmy nominations, is one of the most award-winning series in television history . In 2009 (eight years after taking full ownership of a cult network called Odyssey), the renamed Hallmark Channel got serious about “leaning into Christmas.”
And Valentine’s Day. In 2015, the network announced five films disguised as traditional Valentine’s Day images, traditions and melodramas. Fast forward to Loveuary 2024, and the network is sponsoring increasingly high-concept Valentine’s Day programming. Five films are broadcast, four of which give a distinct theme to Jane Austen’s themes. Featuring network favorites Alison Sweeney (“Days of Our Lives,” “The Biggest Loser”), Will Kemp (“Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce”) and Mallory Janssen (“Agents of SHIELD”), Loveuary concludes on February 24 with “Bridgerton” is based on the film “Sense and Sensibility,” starring standout newbie Deborah Ayorinde (“Them,” “True Detective”). There will be empire-waisted gowns, a literary scholar in need of a new attitude, and, in “An American in Austen,” a woman exported to the time of “Pride and Prejudice.” Stubbornness, love and universally recognized truths: it’s all about the brand.
