Hallmark, like various systems of artificial intelligence, is learning and mastering its organizational terminology. In “A Merry Scottish Christmas,” Chabert’s character has a love interest, and in the Hallmarkian (and Silkian) tradition, he is stout, sensitive, and dexterous. But unlike many Hallmark heroines, she’s not abandoning her glittering career in the big city for an ostensibly more fulfilling life in a small town. Chabert’s character believes that he can remain in Scotland if he can run his own medical practice. The reunion of the “Party of Five” was a great success. “Merry Scottish Christmas” became his most-watched film of 2023 when all advertising-generated cable TV is taken into account. The core audience includes women, an important category admired by advertisers, and the demographic details are broader than Hallmark’s audience size that many people realize. : A grumpy, wand-waving “NCIS” fan.
The business, now a cultural juggernaut, began as a postcard marketing scheme. Joyce, Laurie and William Hall He was born into a poor family in Nebraska in the late 19th century, and by 1911 Hall owned and operated a small business venture called the Book He Store. There, in addition to other printed materials and gifts, “Christmas letters” were also sold. One advertisement from the time described the letters as “neat, classy folders filled with beautiful Christmas sentiments and mottos.” The spirit of this snow globe lives on at Hallmark today. By the late 1940s, the company was sponsoring his Digest radio show on the CBS network, Readers, but soon entered the entertainment business on its own. That radio show, “Hallmark Playhouse,” morphed into a series of television specials, “Hallmark Hall of Fame,” which began in 1951.
In the early days, Hallmark specials aired several times a year, always in December, during Christmas card season. The Hallmark Hall of Fame, which has produced everything from George C. Scott’s Arthur Miller to Cicely Tyson’s “The Marva Collins Story” and is nominated for 78 Emmy Awards, is currently an active member of the television It is one of the most awarded series of all time. In 2009 (eight years after he took full ownership of a religious network called Odyssey), the renamed Hallmark channel got serious about its “Christmas leanings.”
And Valentine’s Day. In 2015, the network announced five films that incorporate traditional Valentine’s Day visuals, traditions, and melodrama. Fast forward to Loveuary 2024, and the network is curating more high-concept Valentine’s Day programming than ever before. Five films have been shown, four of which give distinctive features to Jane Austen’s themes. Starring network favorites Alison Sweeney (“Days of Our Lives,” “The Biggest Loser”), Will Kemp (“Girlfriend’s Guide to Divorce”) and Mallory Jansen (“Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”) Featuring Loveuary, which ends on February 24th. A “Bridgerton”-style adaptation of “Sense and Sensibility,” starring rising newcomer Deborah Ayorinde (“Them,” “True Detective”). Empire-waisted gowns, literary figures in need of new attitudes, and, in “Austen’s American,” a woman thrust into the era of “Pride and Prejudice.” Stubbornness, love, universally recognized truths: totally on brand.