Paying Attention:
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Continuing with our look back at how we’ve covered the Holiday Season, here’s a post that went live in December 2017–before everyone in the world was watching–and has proven to be absolutely dead on in terms of predicting how the Hallmark Channel has become one of the icons of an American Tradition. We were paying attention then and we pay even more attention today. Here’s the background behind America’s favorite Christmas Channel…
The most watched channel during the holiday season is not ESPN, Netflix, MSNBC or Disney. It’s The Hallmark Channel. Why? It’s the programming: Hallmark values, as expressed in the movies shown on the two (soon to be three) Hallmark Channels closely match the values that most Americans associate with the Holidays: love, sincerity, generosity, kindness, goodwill toward men, and finding/understanding the true meaning of Christmas. In an America which has just completed one of the darkest of sociological/cultural/electoral years, the programming of the Hallmark Channels brings us back to a world that’s kinder, nicer, easier to understand and live in, and which represents core American values that we don’t want to lose. A couple of hour’s worth of Hallmark Channel programming is all that’s required to re-center even the most frazzled of holiday shoppers and party goers. The production values are consistently good, the scripts solid if predictable, the acting professional and believable. More good news–not only does Hallmark get it, the company is making it easier to see its programming, by expanding the number of channels and technologies on which you can see its programming. For a closer look at why so many people like the Hallmark Channel, read this piece from the Christian Science Monitor…
Although lots of my friends and contemporaries (including a surprising number of TV producers and editors) have developed the Hallmark Channel habit this holiday season, The Nightshift and Media Bunker team were early in, highlighting the rise of this very American media outlet, with this post published over a year ago.
If you’re not (yet) a Hallmark Channel fan, there is no better time to dig into the alternate vision of America that the Hallmark presents than right now, because seeing is believing.
Set the Holiday mood, check out the Christmas One More Time XV playlist at Spotify…just type http://sptfy.com/12dC into your browser and you’ve got music to get you through all your projects.
Fine Print: Photo courtesy of our friends at GettyImages.com, who have the photographic history of the 20th and 21st century on file. This photo has not been altered in anyway. We thank them for sharing. Text Copyright (c) Donald Pierce, all rights reserved. Enjoy the holidays.