From 2020: The Hallmark Channel became one of the most popular networks on cable by depicting a warm-hearted, idealized version of America—but its America can seem not to include everyone.
“Cut!” McNamara said. “Paul, you need to take down, like, twenty per cent of the edge.” A key tenet of Hallmark screenplays, the veteran writer-director Ron Oliver told me, is that conflict “can never seem like it’s gone so far that it can’t be resolved.” In the next take, Greene delivered the line in a tone of gentle disbelief. “Brilliant!” McNamara said.
In 1951, Joyce Hall wrote to his sales team, “Dear Fellows: We’re going to try our hand at television.” Inspired by the medium’s educational and entertainment possibilities, he wanted Hallmark to deliver edifying fare. That year, the company sponsored the first original opera written for television, “Amahl and the Night Visitors”; later, under the name Hallmark Hall of Fame, it sponsored TV productions of literary adaptations, Broadway plays, and, in time, original films.
These series and films, along with “The Christmas Card,” a surprisingly effective love story between a soldier and a mill owner’s daughter, from 2006, helped inspire Abbott, when he became C.E.O., in 2009, to push Hallmark to “embody the brand on TV.” “I love greeting cards and I love Hallmark stores,” Abbott told me when I met him at Hallmark’s Manhattan offices. To him, the stores give a sense of “comfort, positivity, connections.
The Bure breakthrough was a bit like the plot of “Christmas Under Wraps”: Hallmark had discovered that it had everything it needed—positivity, reassurance, sentimentality, and cozy salesmanship—right there in Garland. At that point, the Hallmark Channel had a steady audience of older viewers, but it began bringing in younger ones by casting prominent actors who had starred in edgy teen fare of the two-thousands—Jesse Metcalfe, Chad Michael Murray—and putting them in sweaters and Santa hats.
Hallmark’s sense of authenticity is rooted more firmly, perhaps, in the pioneer village. In 2014, it adapted Janette Oke’s 1983 novel “” into a series. Centered, at first, on a genteel schoolteacher, Elizabeth , a handsome Mountie , and a local widow in a western-Canadian mining town circa 1910, it has a whiff of the piety of the “Love Comes Softly” series. When characters behave badly , they redeem themselves; pleasures are exceedingly gentle.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Janel Parrish Joins Cast of ‘Family History Mysteries: Buried Past’ For Hallmark Movies & MysteriesEXCLUSIVE: Janel Parrish (Pretty Little Liars) has been cast in Family History Mysteries: Buried Past, a new original premiering on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries in January 2023. Parrish plays S…
Read more »
First Asian Santa to greet children at Mall of AmericaFor the first time in three years, children are back sitting on Santa's lap at the Mall Of America (MOA), but that's not the only change you may notice at The Santa Experience this year.
Read more »
10 strange things NASA's Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft took to the moonA number of strange passengers are hitching a ride on NASA's Artemis 1 moon mission.
Read more »
GREG GUTFELD: Elon Musk took journalists' 'cheat sheets' awayFox News host Greg Gutfeld examines how journalists across America are reacting to Elon Musk's new Twitter policies on 'Gutfeld!'
Read more »
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried took questions about company collapse: 'We messed up big'Sam Bankman-Fried took questions at the DealBook Summit on Wednesday regarding the collapse of FTX, the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange he founded.
Read more »