Hallmark Media is mixing things up. Beginning in the fall, the company’s streaming app, Hallmark Movies Now, will be rebranded as Hallmark+ , and it’s bridging the gap between shoppers and viewers. But, how will it be different from Hallmark Channel?
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“It’s going to be a whole new experience in terms of both programming and the functionality and look of it. We’re looking at the linear landscape. It’s a little grim. We’re still doing pretty well, but there’s only so long that that may last,” Lisa Hamilton Daly, EVP of programming at Hallmark Media, tells Variety . “We’re thinking about how we find our viewers where they’re watching, and that’s where our viewers are. And look, I know we’re a bit late to the game. But we’ve had a chance to look around and see what everyone else is doing, see what the mistakes were. We have this opportunity to do this larger, cross-company idea.”
That idea is to find the link between shoppers and viewers, who Hallmark president Mike Perry says are one in the same. That’s why the rewards program exists — the more you stream, the more rewards for shopping at Hallmark stores you get.
Now, the content is “out behind the linear paywall,” says Hamilton Daly.
In 2022, Hallmark formed a partnership with the Peacock streaming service, which allows viewers during the holidays to watch the channel live and watch the new holiday movies for the three days following the linear debut.
“We saw on Peacock that our movies do really well on streaming. So if we have a dedicated streamer just us, I feel like there’s a lot of growth there, potentially,” she says. “We’re being pretty tight on what we’re putting on there.”
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The new streamer will include a giant library of Hallmark movies, but will not include the ability to watch the linear channel live. Additionally, this year’s 40 new Countdown to Christmas movies will only air on Hallmark Channel; none of them will debut on the app or land on the app directly after the premiere.
“‘Countdown to Christmas’ remains a linear experience,” she says. “The content on the app is going to be ‘Holidazed,’ ‘Mistletoe Murders,’ our unscripted shows and a couple of movie trilogies coming up that we haven’t announced yet. There’s going to be a bunch of holiday content, but it’s going to be separate and different from what’s on linear.”
As for non-holiday content, Hallmark+ will also feature the upcoming “Groomsmen” trilogy films and the drama series “ The Chicken Sisters .”
With some networks, launching a streaming app means a new sense of freedom in what type of language or content is shown; Hallmark isn’t changing that — they have no plans to vary from their G/PG storytelling — but there is a different audience on streaming vs. the network.
“We think about our audiences and what they want and like from us, as to where it goes first. We’re thinking about diversity, the audience being younger and building it around. Our linear audience is who’s left watching linear, which tends to be older. We consider them our core viewers so we think about what makes them happy. It’s about thinking about the audience first in each place,” she says. “We’re also willing to have a little bit more conflict in our stories. In order to develop plots, you have to have some conflict — especially in our series, people fight with each other, but we know there’s the promise that they do really love each other, and they’ll come together at the end. You have to hold that out because it’s very important to our viewers to have that be the resolution. But in order to make a series work, you have to have a little bit more complex storylines.”
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