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Skip to contentSkip to site index Search & Section Navigation Section Navigation SEARCH SUBSCRIBE FOR $1/WEEKLog in Friday, February 2, 2024 Today’s Paper SUBSCRIBE FOR $1/WEEK Magazine|The World Needs Love. Hallmark Is Cashing in. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/31/magazine/hallmark-channel-loveuary.html * Share full articleShare free access * * * 122 Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Supported by SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Screenland THE WORLD NEEDS LOVE. HALLMARK IS CASHING IN. When more people are watching the Hallmark Channel than CNN, you know we’ve reached a new level of interpersonal isolation. * Share full articleShare free access * * * 122 * Read in app Credit...Photo illustration by Alicia Tatone By Danyel Smith Published Jan. 31, 2024Updated Feb. 1, 2024 Sign up for The Ethicist newsletter, for Times subscribers only. Advice on life’s trickiest situations and moral dilemmas from the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah. Try it for 4 weeks. In this lull between perhaps the most successful slate of the Hallmark Channel’s Countdown to Christmas films ever and the Jane Austen-drenched debut of Hallmark’s Loveuary 2024, it’s time to admit that Hallmark movies are actually just Hollywood movies — and specifically rom-coms. Straight couples dance, in well-lit venues, to the music of real instruments. Wrenching decisions are suffered through. Misunderstandings abound. Soulful kisses are for denouements. Happy endings feel required by law. Call it vapid if you will, but the culture of the Hallmark universe has been around since the 16th century, when a shrew apparently needed to be tamed. Since 2015 (when Hallmark started its own production arm), the network has been filling a slot that used to hold date-night and slumber-party films like “The Bridges of Madison County” (1995), “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” (1998), “Bend It Like Beckham” (2002) and “The Notebook” (2004). The people who love those films, like readers of romance fiction (which has led the print growth category), want quantities of quality storytelling, and Hallmark, whose company values include creating “a more emotionally connected world,” understands the assignment. The network’s holiday programming, along with its films in general, continues its pine-scented journey toward cultural domination. Hallmark rose from the sixth-most-watched cable network at the top of October to the third-most-watched the week of Nov. 20, when it won out over CNN and MSNBC in total eyeballs. Decisions about who gets to be quaint can seem mawkish and basic, but they have far-reaching impact. In 2019, Bill Abbott, the president and chief executive of Hallmark’s parent company at the time, said, “Until we get to ‘Walking Dead’ numbers, I’m not going to be happy.” Almost 300 Hallmark Christmas films have aired since 2002, including “The Christmas Card” (2006), for which Ed Asner received an Emmy nomination. One of Hallmark’s strategies — elevating television actors who are either aging gracefully or were tapped out at co-star level — is especially potent. As an example: 23 years after the Salinger siblings Bailey (Scott Wolf) and Claudia (Lacey Chabert) were accepted to college in the series finale of the acclaimed teenage drama “Party of Five,” Hallmark’s “A Merry Scottish Christmas,” starring Wolf and Chabert, made its debut. Portraying a different (estranged) sister and brother (who not only repair their relationship but also discover they are Scottish royalty), the duo fall into the camaraderie of their Golden Globe-winning days. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Hallmark, like various systems of artificial intelligence, is learning, and easing up on its compositional jargon. In “A Merry Scottish Christmas,” Chabert’s character has a love interest, and in Hallmarkian (and Sirkian) tradition, he is hunky, sensitive and handy. Yet unlike so many Hallmark heroines, she is not leaving a high-powered career in the big city for an ostensibly more substantial small-town life. Chabert’s character thinks she can stay in Scotland if she can run her own medical practice. And the “Party of Five” reunion overperformed. Taking into consideration all ad-supported cable, “A Merry Scottish Christmas” was the most-watched movie of 2023. The core viewers included women in key advertiser-prized categories, and the demographic details go broader than what many perceive to be Hallmark’s viewership: crotchety and cane-shaking “N.C.I.S.” fans. Sign Up for Love Letter Your weekly dose of real stories that examine the highs, lows and woes of relationships. This newsletter will include the best of Modern Love, weddings and love in the news. Get it sent to your inbox. What has become a cultural juggernaut began as a plan to market postcards. Joyce, Rollie and William Hall were born into Nebraska poverty in the late 19th century, and by 1911, they owned and operated a tiny venture called the Hall Book Store. There they sold, among other printed goods and gifts, “Christmas letters.” One advertisement from the time described the letters as “neat dainty folders of beautiful Christmas sentiments and mottos.” This snow-globe spirit is alive in Hallmark to this day. By the late 1940s, the company was sponsoring a Reader’s Digest radio show on the CBS network, but it soon went into the entertainment business on its own. Its radio show “Hallmark Playhouse” morphed into “Hallmark Hall of Fame,” a series of television specials that began in 1951. Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like. A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 4, 2024, Page 7 of the Sunday Magazine with the headline: Love Fest. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe Read 122 Comments * Share full articleShare free access * * * 122 * Read in app Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT COMMENTS 122 The World Needs Love. Hallmark Is Cashing in.Skip to Comments Share your thoughts. The Times needs your voice. We welcome your on-topic commentary, criticism and expertise. Comments are moderated for civility. SITE INDEX SITE INFORMATION NAVIGATION * © 2024 The New York Times Company * NYTCo * Contact Us * Accessibility * Work with us * Advertise * T Brand Studio * Your Ad Choices * Privacy Policy * Terms of Service * Terms of Sale * Site Map * Canada * International * Help * Subscriptions Support independent journalism with a subscription. Already a subscriber? Log in. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Enjoy unlimited access to all of The Times. Includes news, games, recipes and more. Welcome offer $6.25 $1/week Billed as $4 every 4 weeks for your first 6 months. 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