Upfronts 2011: Hallmark Channel Opens Up 'Table' To Maya Angelou Series
Net To Present 25 Original Telefilms, While Hallmark Movie Channel Looks To Double Total To 8 In 2012
Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 3/23/2011 4:30:24 PM
New York -- Crown Media Networks, the new umbrella name for Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movie Channel and other related properties, made a good amount of programming rain during its upfront luncheon presentation to the press here on a wet, snowy spring day.
Michelle Vicary, executive vice president, programming, Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movie Channel, talked up an expansive slate of family friendly fare encompassing over 500 original hours for the 2011-12 TV season.
Highlights include a 13-episode, unscripted primetime lifestyle series, hosted by Maya Angelou, the addition of an Emeril Lagasse series to its "Hallmark Channel Home" lifestyle block, an animated Christmas special featuring Hallmark Cards' Jingle the Husky Pup, plus 25 telefilms on the main network and eight, up from four, on the 40-million subscriber Hallmark Movie Channel. Poet, civil rights activist and Presidential Medal of Honor recipient Angelou will host The Spirit Table, beginning in first quarter 2012. The series will bring together family and traditions, as well as guests from what Vicary described as Angelou's "Rolodex," to her table.
Lagasse also will be sharing his culinary craft with friends and guests, via 52 half-hours of daily cooking show Emeril's Table, starting in the fourth quarter, when it will join the net's home block, anchored by the seventh season of The Martha Stewart Show, plus a second campaign run of Petkeeping with Marc Morrone, the domestic diva's go-to-guy for all things pets. Bill Abbott, president and CEO Crown Media Holdings, the parent of Crown Media Networks, said ratings have stabilized for Hallmark's daytime lineup, which he expects will grow as awareness continues to build for this daypart destination.
The industry's leading producer of telefilms has 25 lined up throughout the year, with seasonal projects aimed to key Hallmark Channel's "Countdown to..." holidays strategy. In 2011 that means returning franchises for Miley Cyrus' dad Billy Ray with Christmas Returns to Canaan and Debbie Macomber's Trading Christmas, and for Halloween the fourth Good Witch installment, starring Catherine Bell, The Good Witch's Family, and the Oct. 29 world premiere of Oliver's Ghost, starring Martin Mull and Rhea Perlman in a tale about an 11-year-old Oliver and his ability to see "full-bodied apparitions."
In filling what Vicary said was original movie hole in the network's schedule that was "long overdue," Hallmark Channel, no blarney, will bow its inaugural Saint Patrick's Day file, Chasing Leprechauns, next March. Also on tap: the network's first musical, The Music Teacher, scheduled to sound in the third quarter of 2012.Vicary announced that Hallmark Movie Channel's expanded original telefilm lineup will feature the January 2012 roundup of the sequel to Jason Priestly/Luke Perry western, with Goodnight for Justice 2 just herding into development. Finding a Family is set for Oct. 15, while Hannah's Way, After All These Years and Love's Playing Our Song are all in various stages of development. Abbott said Hallmark Movie Channel,which has cross the 40 million home plateau, is on pace to reach 50 million by the end of 2012.
Citing the success Disney has had with character development so to speak, Abbott, holding the plush in hand, described a bit of corporate synergy, as Crown wants to wag with Jingle the Husky Pup, the interactive storybook and story buddy that was a big-seller for Hallmark Cards outlets last holiday season. Jingle will get the animated treatment, as the star of half-hour animated special during the Christmas 2011 season.
On the acquisition front, sitcom Frasier is set to join the network's lineup on April 8.
No related content found.
VIEW ALL GALLERIES
